Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

That first night in his uncle’s house was unbearably quiet.

Laurent hadn’t stopped crying since Auguste’s funeral. Now, curled in an unfamiliar bed, in a room that didn’t smell like home, all he wanted was his brother. He wanted Auguste to come tuck him in, ruffle his hair, kiss his forehead the way he always did.

But Auguste wasn’t coming. Not tonight. Not ever.

Laurent clutched his stuffed horse tighter, soaking its worn brown fur with fresh tears. The silence pressed in from all sides - too loud, too strange. He threw the blanket off and slipped out of bed, his small feet cold against the hardwood as he tiptoed down the hallway, breath hitching with each sob.

When he reached his uncle’s room, he hesitated. The door was slightly ajar, a warm light spilling out.

He pushed it open, slow and uncertain.

His uncle was sitting up in bed, a book in hand, glasses low on his nose. He looked up, eyes catching Laurent’s tear-streaked face - his expression softening between pity and something Laurent couldn’t quite figure out.

“What are you doing out of bed, sweetheart?” he asked gently.

When Laurent didn’t answer, his uncle quietly set his book aside and lifted the covers, a silent invitation.

Laurent hesitated only a moment before crossing the room. He climbed into the bed, small and shaking, and his uncle gently wrapped an arm around him, pulling him close.

The warmth of the embrace made something in Laurent crumble. He buried his face into the older man’s chest, soaking his pajamas with fresh tears.

“I’m all alone,” he choked out between sobs. “Everyone’s gone - Mama, Papa… and now Auguste. I don’t have anyone left.”

His uncle sighed, almost theatrically, but his arms tightened around Laurent, settling the boy in his lap as if cradling something delicate.

"Yes," he murmured, brushing a strand of hair from Laurent’s damp cheek. "Everyone has left you. Poor thing."

He tilted Laurent’s chin upward, guiding his gaze until their eyes met - blue locked on blue, red-rimmed and shining.

"But you’ve got me now," he said softly. "I’ll take care of you, Laurent. You don’t have to worry about anything anymore."

At those words, Laurent’s face crumpled, fresh tears spilling over as he clung to his uncle’s shirt. The older man stroked his hair slowly, almost absently, fingertips trailing through the short, fine strands.

"There, there," he murmured. "No need for tears, silly boy. Uncle’s here. Uncle won’t leave you alone." He paused, voice low, coaxing. "Why don’t you sleep here with me tonight?"

Laurent nodded, wiping his face on the sleeve of his pajamas. He didn’t hesitate this time, just curled in closer, pressing his cheek against the softness of his uncle’s shirt. The steady rhythm of a heartbeat beneath it was comforting, even if it wasn’t the one he wanted.

He just wanted someone to stay.

“Okay,” he whispered. “Just for tonight.”

His uncle smiled - not the warm kind that Auguste used to give, but something quieter, unreadable. He reached over to switch off the bedside lamp, plunging the room into shadows. One hand rested gently on Laurent’s back, holding him in place.

“That’s my good boy,” he said.

Laurent’s eyes fluttered shut, lashes still wet with tears. Exhaustion pulled at him. He didn’t notice the silence that followed, or how still his uncle had gone beside him.

He didn’t know - couldn’t know - that this was the beginning.

That just for tonight would turn into every night.

At first, Laurent thought he was just being allowed - indulged, even - because he was sad. His uncle never scolded him for climbing into bed uninvited. Instead, he would lift the covers with a quiet, knowing smile, always waiting. Sometimes he'd already be awake, reading. Other times, he'd be sitting up in the dark, as if expecting him.

During the day, too, his uncle was always there.

He’d sit with Laurent in the sunlit drawing room, let him curl up in his lap with a book, or rest his head on his shoulder during the long, quiet hours. He’d stroke Laurent’s hair while he read aloud, his voice low and gentle - like how Auguste used to read to him, only softer. Slower.

Gifts began to appear.

A soft blue sweater, just his size. A leather-bound sketchbook, even though Laurent didn’t draw. A silver comb for his hair. His uncle said it was because Laurent deserved nice things - because he was special.

At school, other children talked about playdates and parents and sports. Laurent had none of that anymore. But he had his uncle. His uncle, who was always waiting at home, always warm and kind, always calling him my darling boy.

So Laurent stayed close.

He didn’t notice when the air started to change.

When the touches lingered just a little longer. When the smiles grew quieter, heavier. When comfort became something else.

And so, the first time his uncle rolled on top of him in the quiet dark, Laurent didn’t stop him.

He didn’t understand - not really - only that this, too, felt like something he was supposed to accept. Something that came with the warmth, the safety, the attention. Something that proved he was loved, or at least not alone.

And all the times after that, he didn’t stop him either.

Because no one else was holding him. Because no one else was saying his name like it mattered. Because grief had hollowed him out, and his uncle was the only one filling the silence.

Laurent told himself it was love. That it must be.

Afterwards, his uncle would always hold him.

He’d gather Laurent up like nothing had happened - or like something important had - and rock him gently, as if the tears were just from bad dreams or old grief.

“You did so well,” he’d whisper, stroking his hair with slow, careful fingers. “It’s always hardest at first. But you’re strong, Laurent. You’re my strong, brave boy.”

Laurent didn’t feel strong. He felt split in two. A part of him floating just outside himself, watching the ceiling, the shadows, the quiet way the room never changed no matter what happened in it.

His uncle would hush him when he cried. He’d speak softly, kindly, like a lullaby.

“The pain won’t last much longer,” he promised. “You’ll get used to it soon. You’ll even start to like it. I know you will.”

And Laurent, too tired to fight, too confused to understand, just nodded. What else could he do? This was the only kind of love he had left.

And love was supposed to hurt sometimes. That’s what people said - in books, in movies, in quiet conversations he half remembered. Wasn’t it?

So he held onto that.

And while the nights bled into each other, the days at school blurred into the same dull fog.

Laurent sat quietly at his desk, smaller than the others, quieter too. He used to be sharp - Auguste said so, once - but now his mind wandered during lessons. Words on the board swam. His pencil sat untouched. He flinched when the classroom door slammed too hard.

He rarely raised his hand anymore.

Teachers began to notice.

They noticed how he stared through the window instead of at the chalkboard. How he jumped when someone touched his shoulder. How he never laughed when the other kids did, how he didn’t run at recess - and if he did, he limped. Subtly, awkwardly. Like he was trying not to let anyone see.

His homeroom teacher, began to make notes. “Fatigue,” she wrote in the margins of his report. “Lack of focus. Withdrawn. Possible injury?”

When she crouched beside his desk one day and gently asked, “Is everything okay at home, Laurent?” he just nodded, eyes wide and unblinking.

“Everything is fine, miss,” he said, soft and automatic.

He smiled, like he’d been told to

The gifts kept coming after that. But they weren’t like before.

Not toys or books or soft sweaters that smelled faintly of cedar and home. These were… different. A silver necklace that felt too heavy around his neck. Cologne in a glass bottle that made his head spin when he uncapped it.

“Because you’re growing up,” his uncle said, brushing Laurent’s hair back from his face. “You’re not a little boy anymore. You deserve things that match who you are.”

Laurent nodded, because that’s what he was supposed to do. But the packages that used to make his chest flutter now made his stomach twist. He didn’t want to hurt his uncle’s feelings - his uncle, who always held him when he cried, who told him he was special, that he was chosen. That no one else could understand him the way he did.

“They’d try to take you away from me if they knew,” his uncle whispered one night, voice hot against Laurent’s ear. “Because they don’t understand us. They don’t see how much we love each other. They’d ruin everything.”

Laurent didn’t know who they were. Teachers, maybe. Strangers. People with cold hands and official voices. He only knew that if they took him away, he’d be alone again. Lost again. And his uncle said that would be worse - worse than anything else.

“We don’t need anyone else,” his uncle said, pressing one of the new gifts - a silver earring, delicate and thin - into Laurent’s trembling hand. “It’s just you and me, Laurent. That’s all we’ll ever need.”

Laurent clutched the earring in his fist and said nothing.

The shine of the gifts dulled quickly, but he kept them all in a box beneath his bed. He didn’t know why he couldn’t throw them away. Only that he couldn’t. Not yet.

Everything changed the day Laurent came home to silence.

The front door clicked shut behind him, his backpack slipping off his shoulder. He heard the soft click of the phone being placed in its cradle, then the sound of footsteps - measured, deliberate - moving through the hall.

His uncle appeared in the doorway. His expression was tight, lips pressed into a thin line. He didn’t smile.

“Laurent, sweetheart,” he said. “Come here.”

Something in his voice made Laurent’s stomach twist. He walked over slowly, clutching the strap of his backpack with both hands.

“Who did you talk to at school today?” his uncle asked. Not casual. Not kind.

Laurent blinked. “No one,” he said quickly. 

“You didn’t tell anyone anything?”

Laurent shook his head. “No, I didn’t. I swear-”

Crack.

The slap came out of nowhere - fast and hard across his cheek. The sound rang in the hallway louder than anything else.

Laurent stumbled, his hand flying up to his face. His skin burned. His eyes stung. He looked up, dazed, not quite believing what had just happened.

His uncle’s face had changed - not angry anymore, exactly, but cold. Too calm.

“You do not lie to me,” he said. “Do you understand?”

Laurent nodded, trembling, pressing his lips together to stop from crying. He wasn’t lying. But he didn’t want to make things worse.

“I’ve protected you,” his uncle said, softer now, crouching to meet his eyes. “I’ve given you everything. All I’ve asked in return is your obedience. Is that too much to ask?”

“N-No,” Laurent whispered.

“Good.” A thumb brushed his cheek, right where the skin had reddened. “Then you’ll be more careful. You know how dangerous it is if people start asking questions. You don’t want them to take you away, do you?”

Laurent’s voice caught. “No.”

“Then we have to be more careful. That’s all. You didn’t mean to make me angry, did you?”

Laurent shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

His uncle smiled. Kissed the top of his head. “There’s my good boy.”

His Uncle took him on the sofa after that.

The curtains were drawn. The light was soft. His uncle’s arms were warm around him, his voice quieter than ever - sugar-sweet and soft like lullabies.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered into Laurent’s hair as he breached him. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just… love you so much. I can’t lose you.”

Laurent nodded, his face blank, body still as he felt himself stretch.

“I know,” he said. “It’s okay.”

He didn’t cry this time. He didn’t do much of anything. He just let his mind go where it always went now - to that quiet place inside where things didn’t feel so sharp, where voices muffled and hands became weightless and far away.

His uncle kissed his temple. His hands moved hungrily, like they always did.

Laurent floated.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was just glad his uncle wasn’t angry anymore. That he’d forgiven him. That things were okay again.

And if he stayed still enough, quiet enough, maybe they would stay that way.

A week later, his uncle sat him down with a new softness in his voice, like he was offering a treat.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Maybe school isn’t the best place for you right now. You’re sensitive. Special. I don’t think they really understand you there.”

Laurent stared at him, unsure. “I thought I was doing okay…”

His uncle smiled. “It’s not about grades, darling. It’s about your heart. And your heart needs peace, doesn’t it? Quiet. Stability. You’ve been through so much.”

He cupped Laurent’s face. “I can give you all that. I’ll teach you here. Just the two of us. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

Laurent hesitated. But the way his uncle looked at him - so proud, so certain - made the words catch in his throat.

He nodded slowly. “Okay.”

Because if his uncle was happy, then everything would be okay. Because it had to be.

And everything was okay. His Uncle taught him, and they’d have sex between lessons. His Uncle was gentler, calmer. Laurent felt cared for.

That peace shattered one night, without warning.

His uncle had made him wear something new - something tight, something that smelled faintly of cologne and fabric softener. He told Laurent to brush his hair, straighten the cuffs, smile.

“There’s someone coming by,” he said lightly. “Just a friend.”

Laurent didn’t understand. Not until the doorbell rang. Not until the man stepped inside with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, and money exchanged hands like it meant nothing.

Not until the bedroom door closed behind him.

Then Laurent understood.

He cried. He sobbed until his throat burned, until his chest ached, and when the man touched him, he screamed for his uncle.

Begged him.

“Please - please don’t let him - Uncle, please-”

But his uncle didn’t come.

He waited just outside the room.

Afterwards, Laurent lay curled on the bed, shaking. He didn’t know how long he was there - only that everything felt wrong, everything felt broken. Like he had fallen out of himself and couldn’t find the way back in.

Later, his uncle stepped inside, calm and soft as ever. Like nothing had happened. Like it was all normal.

“You were so brave,” he said, scooping Laurent up and settling him in his lap. “I’m proud of you.”

He placed a wrapped box on the bed.

Laurent didn’t move.

“Special editions,” his uncle said, gently unwrapping the corners. “The whole collection. You mentioned them once, remember? I tracked them down just for you.”

Inside the box, the spines gleamed - cloth-bound, gold-embossed. Beautiful things.

Laurent stared at them, silent. Then at the roaring fire behind the grate.

All he could think about was throwing them in. Watching the pages curl and blacken. Listening to the crackle of flames eating up every lie.

But he didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

Just let the silence stretch, eyes dry now, because there were no tears left.

Over time his uncle’s attention narrowed in other ways too. Home tutoring stopped happening, lessons were dismissed with a laugh and an offhand remark about usefulness.

“I’d rather have a dumb pretty boy than a smart one,” his uncle joked once, the words soft and casual as if they were a compliment.

The house became Laurent’s entire curriculum: how to keep still, how to please, how to be polished for visitors. Schoolbooks gathered dust on a shelf he no longer touched. Education became an indulgence his uncle had no patience for - and Laurent learned to answer with the same small, obedient smile that kept the threats at bay.

Two years passed.

Two years of closed curtains and locked doors. Of men coming and going - some kind, most not, none of them seeing him as anything but a pretty face, a soft body, something bought and paid for.

Laurent stopped screaming after the first few times. It changed nothing.

He stopped begging, too.

He learned how to smile just enough, how to detach, how to let himself float somewhere far above the ceiling. He learned that silence earned less punishment. That obedience earned praise.

That was all he had now - the moments after. The warm hand stroking his hair. The whispered “You did so well, Laurie. I know that was hard, but you did it for me. I love you.” The soft murmur of his name as his uncle wrapped arms around his trembling frame and held him like a lover, not a child.

“You’re my special boy,” his uncle would say. “No one could ever understand you the way I do.”

And Laurent believed it. He had to.

Because the other men didn’t say his name. They didn’t look him in the eye. They didn’t care if he cried or bled or shook afterward. To them, he wasn’t even Laurent - just something to use and leave behind.

But his uncle was different. His uncle said he loved him.

And so, no matter how much Laurent hated sex - hated himself - it always felt almost okay when it was his uncle. When it was quiet. When it was just the two of them.

Because when his uncle touched him, it didn’t feel like being used.

It felt like being chosen.

But at night, when the house was dark and the fireplace long dead, Laurent would lie awake staring at the ceiling, his body aching, his thoughts louder than they’d ever been.

He thought about ending it. About disappearing. About how quiet everything would be if he just… stopped.

But he didn’t.

Because he had a purpose. His uncle gave him one.

And if this - was what love looked like… then maybe he didn’t deserve anything else.

The summer of Laurent’s fifteenth year, his uncle took him along on a business trip.

Laurent had never traveled with him before. After two years spent mostly shut inside the house, the world beyond its walls felt both too wide and too close, and his nerves prickled at every shift in the unfamiliar air.

At the hotel, his uncle requested a suite with a single double bed. The receptionist didn’t blink. Laurent felt the weight of his uncle’s hand resting low against his back and wondered what she saw. Did she think it strange, a grown man sharing a bed with a boy his age? Or did she smile inwardly at the image of a father and son too close to care about appearances?

It didn’t matter. They’d be gone in a week, and Laurent would never see her again.

After they entered their room, his uncle said they ought to "make use of the bed" before his conference. Laurent didn’t argue; arguing never made a difference.

Later, whilst his uncle adjusted his tie in the mirror, Laurent lay still, eyes closed, napping. When the door finally shut behind him, Laurent rose with quiet determination. He moved carefully, showered, and dressed. The ache of routine clung to him, but so did resolve.

He would not waste this chance at freedom by sitting inside a hotel room.

His uncle told him he could roam the hotel so long as he caused no trouble and returned by six. It wasn’t freedom, not really, but it was more than he was used to. His uncle trusted him - or perhaps knew Laurent had nowhere else to go. There was no one waiting for him beyond these walls, no one who would notice if he stayed away.

Laurent gathered his hair, now long enough to braid, fingers moving with practiced precision. His uncle liked it that way, said it made him look prettier.

He straightened his shirt, drew a steadying breath, and headed downstairs. The hotel lobby gleamed with polished marble and glass, too bright and too cold. Beyond the doors, the pool glittered in the sun, an invitation to anywhere that wasn’t a room upstairs.

His stomach gave a low, insistent growl. The thought of food turned him queasy -  it being too soon since his Uncle had finished inside of him. Besides, his uncle had mentioned he was putting on weight, a warning that echoed in his mind like a rule.

Laurent drifted through the hotel’s crowded halls, weaving past families in bright swimsuits and businesspeople in sharp suits. It was the height of summer, but he stayed on the edges, unnoticed.

Outside, a stone fountain gurgled in the heat. A cat sprawled along its rim, thin and ragged, its coat patchy and dull. Something in the sight tugged at Laurent’s chest. He approached slowly, crouching beside it. The cat eyed him warily, stiff and distant, until he held out a hand. After a pause, it allowed him to stroke its matted fur.

Laurent understood. He often felt like a cat himself - pampered, groomed, nails clipped short so they could never scratch. Pretty, but useless. A broken creature wasn’t entertaining for long, so his uncle granted him freedoms that weren’t freedoms at all. A cage without locks is still a cage, and Laurent knew he had nowhere else to run.

Footsteps scraped softly against the stone path. Laurent froze, every muscle pulled taut. They weren’t his uncle’s - too light, too hesitant - but he knew from experience that danger didn’t always announce itself. Strangers could harm just as easily.

Then came a voice, low and warm, not yet settled into adulthood. “Are you a cat whisperer or something? I’ve been trying to pet him for days, and he won’t let me near.”

Laurent turned carefully.

The boy standing behind him was taller, maybe a year or two older. His skin was a deep brown, his curly hair cropped short. Dimples appeared when he smiled, softening the sharp lines of his jaw. It was the kind of smile that looked like it came easily, as if the world hadn’t taught him to guard it.

Laurent’s heart thudded in his chest. Heat climbed up his neck into his cheeks. He dropped his eyes quickly, ashamed at being caught staring. His uncle’s touch had always left him cold. But this - this dizzy rush inside him - felt entirely new.

The boy stepped closer, crouching to eye the cat. “I swear he’s been plotting my murder. But you show up, and suddenly he’s purring. Unfair.”

Laurent’s tongue felt heavy in his mouth. He had no idea how to answer a boy who spoke so easily, who smiled without calculation. For a fleeting second, he thought about standing up and walking back to the hotel. He could close the curtains, open his book, and wait out the hours until six o’clock. It would be safer that way.

Before he could move, the stranger straightened. “I haven’t seen you around here before. I’m Damen.”

Laurent blinked at him, caught off guard by the bluntness. No pretense, no suspicion - just a name, offered freely, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Laurent,” he managed at last, the word clipped, his nod precise.

He kept his face carefully composed, lips pressed in a thin line. He wanted to seem indifferent, to project a chill that would push this boy - Damen - away. Friends weren’t safe. Strangers weren’t safe. No one was safe.

And yet, beneath the mask he wore, something inside him stirred restlessly at Damen’s presence.

“How long are you here for, Laurent?” Damen asked, falling into step beside him.

He was taller - noticeably so - and his arms already carried the beginnings of muscle. Laurent hadn’t caught up yet. The thought gnawed at him, tangled with the unease that always rose when his uncle spoke of his body changing, a disgust Laurent never quite understood but carried like a stone in his chest.

“None of your business,” he said flatly, already moving away.

The pounding in his head grew sharper, his hands trembling at his sides. Every nerve screamed to retreat. He wanted distance, silence, the safety of four walls and a locked door.

Behind him, Damen’s voice lifted, softer now. “Bye, then.” A thread of disappointment coloured the word, but Laurent didn’t turn.

He didn’t stop until he was back in the suite, until the latch clicked shut. The bed loomed in the center of the room, still carrying the memory of an hour ago. Laurent sank onto it, stiff and cold, and stared at the wall until the blur of his vision swallowed it whole.

A heavy pounding rattled the door just after six. Laurent startled awake, though he didn’t remember falling asleep. That happened often these days - all he seemed to do when he wasn’t entertaining his Uncle’s “friends” was sleep.

He dragged himself to his feet and unlatched the lock. His uncle swept inside at once, a storm of restless energy, and Laurent instinctively stepped aside to clear his path.

One glance was enough. His uncle’s face was set in a scowl, his movements sharp. He was in a bad mood.

Laurent knew better than to draw attention to himself when his uncle carried that kind of storm in with him. He did what he always did: made himself small.

He sank back onto the bed, shoulders rounded, eyes lowered to the patterned carpet. Not asleep this time, but waiting, steadying his breath, letting silence wrap around him like armour.

His uncle paced the suite, restless, heavy footsteps tracing the same circuit over and over. Laurent tracked the movements without ever lifting his gaze, alert in spite of his stillness. The air was tight with unspoken threat, and Laurent’s only defense was invisibility.

And when his Uncle finally shrugged off his blazer and began unzipping his trousers, settling on the edge of the bed, he looked at Laurent with a quiet command in his eyes.

“Come kneel for me, sweetheart” he said, voice low and deliberate. “I’ve had a stressful day.  Make me feel good.”

And Laurent obeyed without a moment’s hesitation.

Dinner was taken downstairs, just the two of them at a corner table. To anyone looking on, they must have seemed the picture of a family - an attentive guardian, a dutiful nephew. Laurent ate what was set in front of him without question, without preference, his fork rising and falling with practiced obedience.

Back in the room, his uncle dropped heavily onto the bed, the television flickering across his sleeping face within minutes.

Laurent sat on the edge of the bed and watched his uncle sleep. His chest ached with a tight, restless anxiety. These days, he couldn’t shake the sense that his uncle was pulling away from him - still demanding, still sharp, but colder, more distant.

It made Laurent’s stomach twist. He didn’t feel loved, not really, not in the way his uncle had made him feel before. What he felt was conditional, brittle. If his uncle turned from him completely, what would he have left? The thought scraped at him, sharp as glass.

The silence of the room grew heavier, pressing against his ribs. Each breath caught short, too shallow. The air was thin, and the walls seemed to lean closer, closer. His pulse drummed in his throat. He curled his hands into fists, fighting the dizzy swell that told him he was about to lose control.

He couldn’t stay here.

Moving carefully, he pulled a hoodie over his head, each motion deliberate, as if noise alone might shatter him. Quiet as a mouse, he unlatched the door and slipped into the hall.

The corridor stretched wide and empty. Then the night air hit him - a rush of cool against overheated skin. Laurent stopped, closed his eyes, and let it wash through him like a tide. His lungs opened at last, ragged but freer, and the world felt a fraction less suffocating.

He returned to the fountain, half-hoping for the ragged cat. The stone rim was empty. A hollow disappointment caught at him, but he kept walking.

The beach stretched just beyond the hotel, dark water pulling at the shore. Laurent stayed clear. The last time he’d been to a beach was with Auguste, and the memory was too sharp, too kind to touch now.

He doubted his older brother would even recognise him anymore. Worse, he was certain that if Auguste knew what he had become, what he had done, he would turn away in disgust.

Laurent wandered until the bright hotel lights fell away behind him. The path gave way to rocks, the sound of the waves following close, rhythmic and relentless. When he stumbled upon the mouth of a cave, he hesitated. The dark yawned open, silent and watchful. Darkness had never been safe for him; it carried too many memories of being cornered, unseen.

He was about to turn back when a sharp meow broke the quiet.

A moment later, a familiar figure emerged from the shadows. The ragged cat padded ahead, tail flicking, and behind it came the boy from earlier - Damen - murmuring to the animal as if it might answer. The cat ignored him entirely.

Damen’s eyes lifted, catching Laurent in the half-light. His grin came quick and easy. “Oh, it’s you - the moody cat whisperer.”

The words struck harder than they should have. Moody. Perhaps he was. Still, the sting made him bristle, especially standing there in his hoodie and pajama bottoms, vulnerable under the weight of another’s gaze.

“Still following that cat around, are you? What are you, five?” Laurent shot back, his voice sharp enough to mask the embarrassment heating his face.

Damen’s smile only deepened, dimples cutting in. Mischief flickered there, warm and teasing. “No. Seventeen. How old are you?”

“Fifteen,” Laurent said shortly, the syllables clipped. He drew his hoodie tighter around himself, suddenly conscious of the hour, of the risk of being seen at all. Without waiting for a reply, he turned, already retreating. “Goodnight.”

Laurent turned sharply, hoodie drawn tight, but Damen’s hand closed around his wrist before he could take a step. The contact made Laurent flinch so hard he nearly pulled free.

Damen dropped his grip at once. “Sorry! I’m sorry - I didn’t mean to-” His words tumbled over each other, urgent and genuine. He rubbed the back of his neck, sheepish. “I just… don’t go yet. I wanted to show you something.”

Laurent steadied himself with a breath, forcing his pulse down. “Where?” he asked, cool as he could manage.

Damen pointed into the mouth of the cave, where the shadows pressed thick against the rocks.

A knot formed in Laurent’s chest. Excuses spun through his mind - he was tired, his uncle would notice if he was gone too long, he wasn’t interested. Anything to keep from admitting that it was the dark itself that unnerved him.

But Damen was watching him too closely, and Laurent saw the flicker of recognition in his eyes.

“It’s okay,” Damen said softly, lifting a small flashlight. He clicked it on, the beam cutting a clean path through the black. “See? We won’t get lost.”

This time, he didn’t grab. He only held out his hand, palm open, patient. “Come on. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Laurent stared at the hand, frozen between instinct and longing. Every part of him screamed to return to the safety of the hotel room, to keep himself invisible, obedient. But another part - a quieter, restless part - stirred at the thought of doing something his uncle hadn’t dictated. Something that was his.

Before he could overthink it, Laurent slipped his hand into Damen’s.

He told himself it was rebellion, a small defiance. He didn’t want to admit how much he also wanted to.

The beam of Damen’s flashlight cut a narrow path through the dark. Laurent followed, each step cautious on the uneven stone, the cool air closing around him. He had never done anything like this before - not even as a child, before his world had unraveled. He had always been the quiet one, content in his mother’s lap, clinging to Auguste’s pant leg while his brother led the way. Adventure had belonged to others.

Now his heart pounded, loud in his ears. But then Damen’s hand gave a reassuring squeeze. Laurent glanced up, and the older boy was looking back at him with a grin that was all sunlight, even here underground.

Damen’s voice filled the cave, easy and constant. He rambled about his father, about his stepmother insisting on “family bonding,” about an older half brother he thought he got along with. It wasn’t that Laurent absorbed every word - half the stories slid past him - but the sound itself worked like balm, keeping the shadows from closing in. The rhythm of Damen’s chatter was comfort enough.

By the time they reached a wide cavern, Laurent’s chest had loosened. His fear had dulled to something quieter, a thrum beneath the surface instead of a roar.

“Okay,” Damen said, his grin tilting mischievous. “Now don’t freak out, but I’m going to turn the light off.”

The words froze Laurent where he stood. His breath hitched, panic tightening like a fist. “No!” His voice cracked, hands flying to clutch at Damen with both trembling fists. “Don’t.”

But before Laurent could stop him, the flashlight clicked, and the beam vanished.

A scream clawed at Laurent’s throat, but it never made it out. He wasn’t swallowed in black.

Instead, the chamber filled with a pale, ghostly glow.

“Look up,” Damen said softly.

Laurent did.

High above, the stone ceiling broke open into a perfect circle of sky, the full moon suspended in it like a lantern. Its light spilled into the cave, silvering the rock, painting Damen’s face in soft radiance.

Laurent’s breath caught - not in panic this time, but awe.

Laurent couldn’t drag his eyes away from the shaft of moonlight spilling into the cave. The silver glow softened the jagged stone, made the whole chamber feel less like a trap and more like something secret, hidden just for them.

He forced his expression smooth, schooling his breath as if he hadn’t just been trembling on the edge of panic. “It’s fine,” he murmured, his voice carefully even. “I wasn’t scared.”

Beside him, Damen gave a low laugh. Not cruel, not mocking - just warm, amused in a way that made Laurent’s cheeks burn. Damen’s hand was still clasped around his, and he could feel how tightly Laurent gripped back, his knuckles white.

“Sure you weren’t,” Damen said, but he didn’t tease further.

Together, they tilted their heads back. The moon hung above them, impossibly bright, like a coin cut into the ceiling of the world. For a moment, neither spoke.

Damen glanced sideways. In the glow, Laurent’s features were sharpened into something fragile and luminous, all fine bones and wide eyes. He carried sadness in the set of his mouth, in the stillness of his body - but now, staring upward, that sorrow eased. Awe broke through, softening him in a way that stole Damen’s breath.

He found himself wishing - fiercely - that he’d never have to see that sadness return. That this boy, with his guarded silences and brittle composure, could always look at the world as he was looking at the moon now.

After a while, the moon shifted, the light thinning. Damen flicked the flashlight back on, the beam cutting through the dark. Together they retraced their steps, their footsteps echoing against stone.

Damen glanced sideways. “So, what are you doing at the hotel?”

Laurent’s voice stayed level, practiced. “My uncle has a week long conference. He’s my guardian, so… I came with him.”

“Oh.” Damen hesitated, then asked gently, “Why your uncle?”

Laurent’s gaze stayed fixed ahead. “I don’t have anyone else.”

The words landed heavy in the silence. Damen frowned, his easy chatter stalling. He didn’t press further. Instead, he cleared his throat and tried again. “I like your hair. You had it in a plait earlier - it looks good like that. Pretty, even when it’s loose.”

Laurent’s hand twitched, fingers curling around the strands that brushed his shoulders - still damp from the second shower he’d had to take after his Uncle came back from his conference. Compliment or not, the words unsettled him.

Didn’t Damen see it? The sheen of filth that clung to him. Didn’t he see the ghost of his uncle’s come tangled in Laurent’s hair, the proof of what he was, what had been done to him? His chest tightened, shame crawling like a rash beneath his skin.

“Laurent?” Damen’s voice pulled him back.

He blinked, realising he’d gone silent, lost in the spiral of his own thoughts. They had already stepped out of the cave, the night air cooler here, the sound of the waves rushing back in.

By the time they reached the hotel lobby, neither of them spoke much. Their hands were no longer joined, but Damen slowed when they reached the doors.

“Hope I see you around again,” he said, a little tentative, but smiling all the same.

Laurent only nodded. He didn’t trust his voice. The want in his chest surprised him - wanting to say yes, wanting to believe it was possible - but the thought tangled up with fear, as everything did.

Upstairs, he slipped back into the suite as quietly as he could. The room was dark except for the blue flicker of the television. He thought his uncle was asleep until as Laurent settled down on the bed, a voice came, low and sharp in the stillness.

“Where have you been?”

Laurent’s throat closed. “I couldn’t sleep,” he murmured. “Went to see if I could find some alcohol.” It was an explanation his uncle would accept; after all, he was the one who had first pressed a glass of wine into Laurent’s hand on nights he woke from nightmares.

“You know I’ve got things to help you sleep, sweetheart.”

“I didn’t want to wake you up,” Laurent whispered.

There was a rustle of sheets, and then his uncle’s arm wrapped around him, pulling him close. A kiss brushed his temple.

“Such a sweet boy,” his uncle mumbled, already drifting off again.

Laurent lay rigid, staring into the dark. He didn’t believe the words anymore - not the way he once had, when he was thirteen and still desperate to.

As his uncle’s breathing deepened beside him, Laurent let his thoughts slip elsewhere - to the boy in the cave, with his easy smile and his endless voice, who had shown him the moon. Damen. Sweet in a way that was real.

It was that sweetness Laurent clung to as he finally closed his eyes.

His uncle was gone by the time Laurent woke, the room stripped of his presence except for the faint smell of cologne and the dent in the other side of the bed. The day stretched ahead, empty.

He skipped breakfast, the thought of food making his stomach twist, and drifted down to the pool instead. It was already buzzing with noise - families, couples, children shrieking as they splashed - but Laurent kept to the edges, invisible. He found a sunbed in the shade and sat with his book, knees drawn up, shielding himself with paper and silence.

He hadn’t managed to finish a single book in months. His eyes followed the words, line after line, but the sentences refused to settle. His mind slid away, too dulled, too frayed to hold onto the story.

Once, reading had been his world - his way of escaping, of breathing somewhere else. He missed it fiercely, the thrill of disappearing into another life. Now the pages just stared back at him, stubbornly flat.

Laurent let the book rest against his chest and shut his eyes, the sound of the pool a distant hum. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt truly absorbed by anything. Not since his uncle had put him to work.

“Are you sleeping?”

Laurent cracked one eye open, squinting up at Damen, who stood above him with that same open, curious expression. His peace was ruined, though the irritation he tried to summon dissolved almost immediately, chased away by the rush of remembering last night - the cave, the moonlight, Damen’s hand in his. The fact that Damen had sought him out again left something fizzy and unsteady in his chest.

“Are you usually this annoying,” Laurent muttered, closing his book with deliberate care, “or is it just me you like to pester?”

Damen tilted his head, pretending to think it over. “Do you think I’m annoying?”

The teasing was light, but Laurent’s stomach flipped. He replayed his own words and realised how sharp they might have sounded. He sat up straighter, meeting Damen’s gaze with unusual earnestness. “No. I’m sorry - I didn’t mean that.”

For a moment Damen only studied him, then his smile broke wide, dimples cutting deep. The warmth of it was impossible to ignore.

Laurent felt heat creep into his face and quickly looked down, fussing with the spine of his book as if it needed straightening. His pulse betrayed him though, quick and eager.

Damen dropped onto the sunbed beside him without hesitation, stretching out like he belonged there. “So,” he nodded at the closed book in Laurent’s lap, “what are you reading?”

Laurent hesitated, then turned the cover toward him. Damen leaned in, squinting at the title.

“Any good?”

Laurent’s mouth went dry. He hadn’t taken in more than three sentences, not really. “It’s fine,” he said quickly, then pivoted. “What do you want?”

That only made Damen grin wider. “Thought I’d see if you wanted to come into town with me. There’s a market today - music, food, all kinds of stalls. Could be fun. Only if you want to, though.”

Laurent’s heart stuttered. He did want to. The thought of being anywhere that wasn’t this hotel, anywhere his uncle’s shadow didn’t reach, lit something sharp and desperate inside him. But then came the inevitable thud of reality: the rules, the watchfulness, the consequences.

“I can’t,” he murmured, eyes darting away. “I’m not allowed to leave. My uncle would…” His throat tightened. “He’d be furious.”

For the first time, Damen’s smile dimmed, disappointment flickering across his face. He studied Laurent with quiet seriousness before saying, “We’ll be back before he even notices. I promise.”

Laurent bit his lip, pulse skittering. The temptation curled hot in his chest - rebellion, freedom, the possibility of being just a boy for an afternoon. But the fear was there too, pressing against his ribs, reminding him of the danger.

“Laurent…” Damen leaned forward, earnest, searching his face. “Would he really be that mad?”

The question caught Laurent off guard. His first instinct was yes. Of course his uncle would be furious - rules broken, trust betrayed, punishment waiting. But he couldn’t say that. Not to Damen.

His uncle had always told him no one would ever understand what bound them, the private world they shared. If Laurent ever tried to explain, people would twist it, look at him differently, hate him for it. They wouldn’t see the care, the protection. They wouldn’t see the love.

Laurent swallowed hard, his throat dry. He thought of Damen’s open face, his laughter, the way he’d taken Laurent’s hand in the cave. If Damen knew the truth, would he look at him with disgust? Would he walk away?

He couldn’t risk it. He couldn’t let Damen - or anyone - see what was real.

So Laurent forced himself to nod, a small tilt of his chin. “Fine,” he said quietly. “I’ll come.”

Not because he wasn’t afraid, not because he wasn’t sure of what awaited him later if his uncle found out - but because it was easier this way. Easier to keep the secret hidden. Easier to appear, just for a while, like an ordinary boy saying yes to an ordinary invitation.

The market sprawled along the narrow seaside streets, stalls bursting with color. Strands of paper lanterns swung above them, bright against the blue summer sky, and every turn smelled of something different - grilled seafood, sugared almonds, fried dough dusted with cinnamon. Children darted between the crowd, their laughter carried on the salty air.

Damen fit right into it, his stride unhurried, broad shoulders cutting a steady path through the press of people. Laurent followed, stiff as a board, his eyes never still. Every flash of a tailored suit in the crowd, every tall figure out of the corner of his eye set his pulse hammering. He checked the time on his watch again and again, certain his uncle could appear at any moment.

“You’re wound tighter than that cat you were whispering to,” Damen said, glancing over his shoulder. “Relax. Nobody here’s going to bite.”

Laurent gave him a flat look. “You talk too much.”

Damen grinned, unfazed. He veered toward a food stall where skewers of sizzling meat crackled over hot coals. “Then I’ll put my mouth to better use.” He bought two with quick, practiced ease, pressing one into Laurent’s reluctant hand.

“I’m not hungry.”

“I can hear your tummy rumbling from here,” Damen said simply, biting into his own. “Come on, just try it. Not everything’s a trap.”

Laurent took the smallest bite possible. It was delicious - juicy, smoky, spiced just right - but he schooled his face into neutrality. Damen, watching, laughed.

“Figures. I’ve never met anyone who could make food look like a personal insult.”

They walked on. Damen stopped at stalls here and there, greeting vendors with the kind of careless friendliness that drew people in. He lingered over leather bracelets and glass pendants, then tested his aim at a ball-throwing game and won a cheap stuffed dolphin. He offered it to Laurent with a flourish.

Laurent looked at the dolphin as if Damen had just handed him a live grenade. “What exactly am I meant to do with that?”

“Keep it,” Damen said, dimples flashing. “Or throw it at me when I talk too much.”

Laurent tucked his arms close, resisting the urge to take it. His eyes dropped to his watch again, the minutes ticking mercilessly forward. Damen’s smile faltered as he caught it.

“You keep doing that,” Damen said, quieter now. “Checking the time.”

Laurent’s jaw tightened. “I’m not.”

“You are,” Damen replied, steady but not unkind. He slowed his pace, letting the crowd flow around them. “Who are you afraid of seeing? Your uncle?”

Laurent’s throat closed. He couldn’t answer.

Damen’s voice cut through, gentler than usual. “Are you okay?”

Laurent startled, then shook his head. “I’m ruining your time,” he said, his voice clipped, almost rehearsed. “You don’t have to drag me around. I’ll just - I’ll leave.”

The words seemed to hit Damen like a physical blow. He stopped in his tracks, expression faltering, hurt flickering openly across his face. “You… want to leave?”

Guilt knifed through Laurent’s chest. He hadn’t meant it like that. He hadn’t meant to make Damen look at him that way, like he’d just shoved him aside. The truth lodged in his throat - he didn’t want to leave. He just didn’t know how to stay.

Before he could sort the words out, Damen shook his head, determination sliding back into place. He stepped closer, eyes steady on Laurent’s. “I’m having fun, Laurent. Please don’t go. Stay.”

Laurent hesitated. He could feel the weight of his uncle’s rules pressing down, the danger of being missed, of being caught - but he couldn’t ignore the plea in Damen’s expression either. It was so rare to see someone want him there, to see someone’s face fall at the thought of him walking away.

“…Fine,” Laurent murmured, the word almost too soft to hear.

Relief broke across Damen’s face, warm and unguarded. He didn’t press. He just stuffed the dolphin into Laurent’s arms before Laurent could refuse again.

“For what it’s worth, I’m glad you came,” he said, his tone lighter once more.

Laurent held the toy against his chest, stiff and awkward, the heat of shame rising in his face. He didn’t believe Damen, not really - but a small, buried part of him wanted to.

Relief broke across Damen’s face, warm and unguarded. He reached for Laurent’s hand without thinking, fingers wrapping firmly around his. “Come on. Let’s go to the beach. They’ve got ice cream there.”

“Wait-” Laurent started, panic rising, but Damen was already tugging him along, stride confident, laughter spilling back into his voice.

“You’ll thank me later.”

Laurent stumbled a step before finding his footing, caught in the pull of Damen’s hand.

The boardwalk gave way to pale sand, the cries of gulls sharp above the hush and roar of the tide. Damen kicked off his sneakers the second they hit the beach, swinging them from one hand as though he’d been waiting for this moment all day. Laurent kept his shoes on, wary, but he didn’t pull away from Damen’s grip on his hand.

It had been years since he’d last stood on a beach. He’d expected it to hurt, the sight of the sea dredging up memories best left buried - but with his long hair tugged loose by the wind and Damen’s steady warmth at his side, the ache was softer than he’d imagined.

Damen steered them toward a vendor’s cart with the same easy assurance he carried everywhere, and returned with two ice creams: a cone piled high for himself, and a small plastic tub for Laurent.

“Didn’t think you looked like a cone person,” Damen said with a grin, handing it over.

Laurent accepted it carefully, the spoon light between his fingers. He didn’t tell Damen he was correct.

They settled in the sand, side by side. Damen dug his toes into it, comfortable as though the beach belonged to him. Laurent sat straighter, legs folded, shoes still on, watching the horizon.

For once, silence didn’t weigh on him. It stretched around them in soft layers: the hush of waves pulling back, the distant cries of children further down the shore, Damen’s easy breathing beside him. Laurent ate his ice cream slowly, savouring both the taste and the fact that for once, no one expected anything of him.

He let himself breathe. He let himself like the quiet.

The waves rolled in and out, a steady rhythm against the shore. Laurent had begun to feel almost lulled by it when Damen suddenly broke into laughter beside him, shaking his head as though at some private joke.

Laurent turned, wary. “What’s so funny?”

Damen wiped at his grin, though it didn’t quite fade. “Just thinking about my friend Nik back home. He’s going to throw a fit when I tell him I spent my summer vacation hanging out with a pretty blonde boy instead of him.”

The words landed like a spark under Laurent’s skin. His breath caught; heat rushed to his cheeks before he could school his expression. Pretty. He’d heard it before, but only from his uncle’s mouth or in the murmurs of strangers his uncle brought home - ugly words, heavy with possession.

From Damen, it was different. Softer. It set his pulse racing in a way he didn’t recognise, a way that made him feel both exposed and strangely light.

Damen noticed his silence, his own bravado faltering. He ducked his head, suddenly sheepish, as though regretting the slip of honesty.

Laurent stared out at the horizon, lips pressed together. Maybe in another life he would have found the courage to answer in kind, to tell Damen he was handsome, to lean in and brush a kiss across his cheek just because he wanted to. Maybe in another life he could have been that boy - carefree, blushing, normal.

But he wasn’t. Damen didn’t know the real him, the filth Laurent carried, the truth that stripped words like “pretty” of anything gentle.

Still, as the sea breeze tangled his hair and Damen’s laugh lingered in the air between them, Laurent let himself imagine. Just for this week. Just when Damen was looking at him. He could pretend.

That night, his uncle fucked him against the wall - just hours after Damen had coaxed him into the sea, after they’d walked back barefoot through the sand, Laurent grumbling about the heat while Damen laughed and spoke of Akielos, warning him that if he found this warm, he'd never survive a southern summer.

It was painful - slow and suffocating. Laurent didn’t fight. He stood there, motionless, silent, until it was over and his uncle told him to clean himself up.

Laurent shut himself in the bathroom and turned the water on hot - so hot it stung when it hit his skin. He stood beneath the spray until the air filled with steam, until the scalding heat blurred into numbness. It was the only way he knew to strip away the act, to make himself clean enough to bear.

When he finally stepped out, skin raw, he wrapped himself in a towel and caught his reflection in the mirror. His hair clung damp to his shoulders, his face pale, but there was something new in his chest - a flicker he couldn’t name.

Later, lying in the dark, the sheets pulled tight around him, he waited for the familiar heaviness to press him down. But it didn’t. Instead, there was the memory of warm sand under his shoes, of ice cream melting sweet on his tongue, of Damen’s smile.

For the first time in years, Laurent realised with quiet surprise that he was looking forward to waking up.

The next five days passed in a rhythm that felt both impossibly new and dangerously fleeting. Damen seemed to take it upon himself to find Laurent wherever he was - by the pool, in the lobby with a book he wasn’t reading, wandering the hotel grounds with his thoughts. Each time, he’d bring with him a kind of careless energy that made it easy for Laurent to follow, even when every part of him said he should retreat.

They went into town twice more, roaming through streets lined with market stalls and tiny cafes. Damen talked as though the world was his to share: stories of his school friends, his half-brother who he idolised, the petty arguments with his stepmother. Laurent, quiet beside him, listened more than he spoke. But Damen never pressed when Laurent kept his answers short. He simply carried the silence with an ease Laurent had never experienced, filling it with his steady presence.

On the third day, they went back to the beach. Damen coaxed Laurent to take off his shoes, to feel the sand between his toes. At first Laurent resisted, prickly and defensive, but in the end he let Damen tug them off, hiding his own embarrassment beneath a sharp remark. The warmth of the sun, the crash of the waves, and Damen’s laughter made the world feel - if only for a while - like it was wider than the walls of a hotel room.

Another day, Damen brought him to a cafe by the pier, buying them both cold drinks. They sat side by side watching the boats, Damen joking about the tourists, Laurent cutting him down with dry wit that only made Damen grin more. For once, Laurent felt as though his words were heard and not twisted back against him.

By the fifth day, their companionship had settled into something easy, almost instinctive. Damen didn’t touch him much - not beyond the casual brush of shoulders, the passing grip of a wrist when he pulled Laurent toward something new - but when he did, Laurent’s heart clenched in ways he didn’t understand. Damen treated him like an equal, never like a possession, never like something to be used. It left Laurent both light and unsettled, as if he were holding on to something fragile he didn’t dare name.

And though Laurent never admitted it to himself, beneath his sharp replies and guarded glances, there was a heaviness forming - a quiet dread at the thought of these days ending. He didn’t understand it, couldn’t name it, but the idea of never seeing Damen again lingered like the shadow of a bruise.

Laurent was certain his uncle knew.

Every evening when he slipped back into the hotel room, just before six, his uncle would look at him with an expression that made his chest seize - sharp-eyed, calculating, like he could strip Laurent bare with a glance. But then, without a word, his uncle would return to his phone calls or to the television, and Laurent would be left standing there, trembling under the silence.

The reprieve terrified him. He knew his uncle noticed patterns. He knew his uncle didn’t allow change. And yet, day after day, nothing was said. The lack of punishment only made Laurent more anxious, like he was waiting for a storm to break.

Still, he kept going back. He couldn’t stop himself. Damen had become a gravity of his own, pulling Laurent from the bed where he would normally hide, from the haze of sleep that dulled everything. Each time Damen caught his eye, each time he smiled like he wanted Laurent there, something inside him warmed and loosened.

But Laurent never told him anything real. Not when Damen asked about his uncle, not when he pressed lightly, in that earnest way of his. Laurent’s replies were sharp, evasive, laced with enough sarcasm to push Damen off the trail. The truth was a cage lined with razor wire - untouchable. No one would understand, not Damen, not anyone. It was what his uncle had told him, again and again: no one else could know. No one else could ever love what Laurent really was.

So Laurent let Damen believe whatever he wanted. That Laurent was simply guarded, private, difficult. That he was just another boy at the hotel, reluctant to open up. Damen didn’t need to know what he’d been made into.

Laurent promised himself he would leave this hotel with the secret still buried, Damen never finding out the truth of him. If Damen thought of him at all after, Laurent hoped it would only be as the sharp-tongued, moody boy who’d sat beside him on the sand, who’d looked at the moon in wonder, who’d almost smiled without shame.

He could live with that. He had to.

Laurent left Damen at the edge of the lobby, the boy’s easy grin lingering in his mind long after he turned away. They had promised to meet again in the morning, just for a little while before Laurent’s uncle packed them up and took him away. The promise pressed into Laurent’s chest like something fragile - half hope, half ache.

As he moved down the quiet hallway, the carpet muffling his steps, he let the weight of the week settle over him. He didn’t want to say goodbye tomorrow. He didn’t want the warmth Damen gave so freely, the careless laughter, to dissolve like mist when he left. But Laurent knew better than to expect more. He had learned that lesson too well.

He passed a housekeeping cart, the scent of soap lingering, then the soft hum of an ice machine, all the ordinary sounds of a hotel at night. Somehow, they felt sharper now, like he was walking through a world that didn’t quite belong to him but had let him borrow it for a little while.

Soon, he would go back to what he always was - his uncle’s perfect boy, trained and obedient, a pet to be kept. The thought should have hollowed him, but instead a strange calm held him upright. He’d had this. A handful of days where someone had treated him like a normal fifteen-year-old.

Damen didn’t know who he really was. And maybe that was for the best.

By the time Laurent reached the door to the suite, the ember of that thought still burned low in his chest. Whatever happened after, at least he’d had this week. At least he’d had Damen.

Laurent slid the keycard through the lock and pushed the door open, still carrying the ember of his thoughts like something fragile cupped in his hands.

And froze.

His uncle was inside. Not alone. A boy was perched on the bed - young, too young, blinking in startled confusion. Laurent saw his uncle’s shirt half-open, his belt loose, the whole scene searing into his mind before he could look away.

For a heartbeat Laurent couldn’t breathe. The ember in his chest cracked, shattering into something raw and jagged. His uncle wasn’t supposed to need anyone else. He wasn’t supposed to want anyone else. Laurent had been told, for years, that he was special, that everything done to him was proof of love. That it was just them, bound together in a way no one could understand.

And now - this.

A sound tore out of him before he could stop it, hoarse and strangled. “What are you doing?” The words came in a rush, louder, sharper, his voice breaking. “What is this? What is this?!”

The boy on the bed flinched, shrinking back. His uncle rose in an instant, moving with a speed Laurent knew too well. His hand closed around Laurent’s mouth, the other slamming him against the wall hard enough to make his teeth rattle.

“Quiet,” his uncle hissed, face inches from his own. The man’s cologne and sweat stung Laurent’s nose. “Not. A. Word.”

Laurent’s chest heaved, panic choking him. His uncle’s grip bruised, iron tight, and Laurent swallowed down the scream clawing its way up his throat. His eyes darted once to the younger boy, who stared back at him, wide-eyed and lost, before dropping his gaze in shame.

The ember that had carried Laurent down the hall was gone, smothered beneath the crushing weight of his uncle’s hand.

The boy on the bed whimpered, his voice high and unsteady. “What’s happening?”

Laurent’s uncle didn’t even glance at him. His hand was still crushing Laurent’s mouth, his breath hot against his ear. “Be quiet, Aimeric.”

The name hung in the air. The child - Aimeric - fell silent at once, small and trembling, eyes darting between them like a trapped animal.

Laurent stared at him. At the narrow shoulders, the wide, uncertain eyes, the way his bare feet curled against the sheets as if he wanted to disappear. It was like staring into a mirror that showed him not his face but the shape of his own loneliness, his own fear, all the years of it condensed into this fragile figure. For a moment, Laurent couldn’t tell if the hollow in his chest came from that recognition, or from the sharper truth - that his uncle had chosen someone else. That he was no longer singular, no longer special.

“Will you be quiet?” his uncle demanded, his grip tightening.

Laurent’s throat worked. His eyes burned. He nodded.

The hand released him at once. Laurent sagged back against the wall, swallowing hard against the tears spilling over. His uncle smoothed his hair as though nothing had happened, as though he hadn’t just pinned him there like a disobedient child.

Laurent’s throat was tight, but the words ripped out anyway, raw and jagged. “Who is he?”

His uncle’s eyes flicked to the bed, then back to him, sharp and assessing. For a moment Laurent thought he wouldn’t answer. Then, with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, he said lightly, “He’s a conference man’s son. He just needed someone to help him, show him how to do a good job. Nothing like you, Laurent.”

The boy - Aimeric - ducked his head, as though ashamed.

Laurent’s hands curled into fists. His chest felt hot, his pulse frantic. “Help him?” His voice cracked. “I thought-” He stopped himself, the rest caught in his throat, burning.

His uncle stepped closer, crowding him back against the wall, voice dropping into a low murmur. “Don’t be silly. You’re not the same. You’re my grown-up boy, Laurent. You understand me in ways he never could.” His fingers brushed down Laurent’s cheek, slow and deliberate, as though the boy in the bed wasn’t even there.

“I don’t-” Laurent choked, blinking hard as tears gathered. “You said it was us. That no one else-”

“It is us.” His uncle’s tone was firm, soothing, dangerous. “You’re everything to me. Don’t let jealousy cloud your judgment. You’re too important for that.” He tilted Laurent’s chin up, pressing a kiss against his hairline. “He’s just a child. But you,” The smile curved, indulgent. “You’re mature. My beautiful boy.”

Laurent shook his head, desperate, but the fight was slipping through his fingers. The words cut and soothed at once, the contradictions twisting him in knots. His uncle’s hand lingered warm on his neck, thumb stroking softly like comfort, like ownership.

His eyes darted once more to Aimeric - silent, small, frightened - and for a split second Laurent wanted to scream, to drag the boy out with him, to run. But the weight of his uncle’s gaze, the familiar, suffocating web of affection, pulled him down again.

The words came out low and shaking, steeped in bitterness. “Is that all I am to you? Another beautiful boy who spreads his legs for you?”

The slap came so fast Laurent didn’t see it coming. His head snapped to the side, the sting bright across his cheek, the sound echoing in the small room. Aimeric whimpered.

“Don’t,” his uncle hissed, towering, voice suddenly all steel. The silence pressed heavy, suffocating.

Then, as quick as the storm had struck, it passed. His uncle sighed, softening, and reached to tilt Laurent’s chin back toward him. The same hand that had struck him now cupped his face with aching gentleness.

Tears slipped hot down his face. He hated himself for it, but he leaned into the touch, just a fraction, needing something, anything, to hold onto.

“There now,” his uncle murmured, voice turning soft, coaxing. He cupped Laurent’s face, brushing a thumb over his cheek. “You’re too sensitive, sweetheart. Always have been. You know I love you. You know you’re my special boy.”

The words pierced through Laurent’s fury like a hook. He wanted to scream, to spit them back, to run from the room and never return. But the warmth of his uncle’s hand, the familiar cadence of those words - he had been trained to fold beneath them, to mistake them for safety.

Laurent closed his eyes, shuddering. Aimeric sat silent on the bed, the picture of what Laurent himself must have been once: quiet, small, waiting to be told what to feel.

And Laurent, for all his anger, for all his heartbreak, let himself be pulled into his uncle’s arms. Not because he believed the words anymore, but because he was fifteen, and he was lonely, and he had nowhere else to go.

Laurent sagged against his uncle’s chest, tears hot on his cheeks, the familiar weight of those words wrapping around him like chains. My beautiful boy. My grown-up boy. He had been told them so often he almost believed them. Almost.

But then, cutting through the fog, came a different memory. Damen’s laugh - unrestrained, sunlit. The way he’d tugged Laurent toward the market stalls, hand warm around his own. The simple, thoughtless kindness of a boy who asked nothing of him except to stay.

Laurent’s breath hitched. He saw Damen’s dimples, his bright, teasing grin, the way he’d said pretty without making it ugly. For the first time in years, Laurent felt the difference.

Before he even realised what he was doing, Laurent’s body moved. He tore himself free from his uncle’s grip and stumbled for the door, his heart hammering so loud he could hear nothing else.

“Laurent!” His uncle’s voice was sharp behind him, but Laurent didn’t stop.

The suite door slammed shut in his wake, and then he was running down the corridor, bare feet pounding the carpet, his long hair streaming behind him. He didn’t know where he was going, didn’t know what would happen when his uncle caught up. He only knew he had to run.

Laurent didn’t know how long he ran. The corridor blurred, the lobby flashed past, and suddenly the humid night air struck him like a slap. His lungs burned, his chest felt raw, but still he didn’t stop until the glow of lights pulled him toward the hotel’s outdoor restaurant.

The sound of clinking cutlery, low conversation, and laughter washed over him. Families crowded the tables, children leaning into their mothers, fathers pouring wine, the hum of ordinary happiness thick in the air. Laurent slowed, stumbling to a halt, his breath catching in his throat.

He stared.

Here were people who didn’t have to barter their bodies for affection. Families who loved without conditions. Parents who didn’t demand ruin in exchange for care. The sight was unbearable - too sweet, too sharp - and he almost turned away.

And then he saw him.

Damen sat at a long table with his family, his laughter bright, his shoulders relaxed. The light from the hanging lanterns caught on his skin, golden, and for one dizzy moment Laurent thought he’d imagined him. But no - he was there. Real. Damen, who had spent days pulling Laurent gently into his orbit, treating him like he wasn’t different. Damen, who didn’t know his secrets but had looked at him anyway, like he was worth seeing.

It was as if some invisible force tugged them toward each other. Laurent’s gaze locked on Damen’s, and instantly Damen’s smile faltered. Concern replaced it, sharp and immediate, his brows drawing tight as he took in Laurent’s disheveled hair, the wild look in his eyes.

At the table, Damen leaned in, speaking quickly to his father, his words lost beneath the restaurant’s noise. Then he pushed back his chair, rising with a scrape of wood on tile.

And before Laurent could even think of fleeing, Damen was moving - fast, determined - cutting through the tables, his gaze fixed on Laurent as though nothing else in the world mattered.

“Laurent?” Damen’s voice was low, urgent. He stopped just in front of him, eyes searching Laurent’s face. “What’s happened? Why are you crying?”

Laurent blinked at him, confused for a moment - until he felt it. The wetness on his cheeks, the tremor in his chest. He was crying. In front of someone.

The realisation splintered something inside him. For years, he had trained himself to lock it all down, to never let anyone see weakness, not even in private. His uncle had always said tears were for children. And now here he was, standing under the lantern glow with salt water on his face, Damen looking at him like he mattered.

His lips parted, but no sound came out. Shame burned through him hotter than any flame.

When Laurent didn’t respond, Damen’s expression tightened. Without a word, he reached for Laurent’s wrist. Laurent flinched at the sudden touch, but Damen didn’t let go - his grip was steady, not cruel, tugging him gently but firmly away from the restaurant, away from the curious eyes that might have already noticed them.

They didn’t stop moving until the sand gave way beneath their feet, the soft roar of the waves filling the silence. Only then did Damen slow, turning back to him, chest rising and falling with the effort of pulling him this far.

Laurent’s tears had dried by then. His breathing had steadied. The storm was gone, shut back behind the iron bars he kept locked tight. His face smoothed into the practiced blankness, his shoulders straightened, the cold mask sliding back into place.

By the time Damen looked at him again, there was no trace of the boy who had stood crying in the restaurant lights - only the Laurent who let nothing through.

Damen leaned over, close enough that his warmth cut into Laurent’s chill. He tilted his head, voice softer than Laurent had ever heard it. “Laurent. Please. What happened? Talk to me.”

Laurent instinctively leaned back, creating space, his body recoiling as if distance could keep him safe. “I’m fine. It was nothing. Stupid.” His voice was clipped, hurried. He gestured vaguely toward the hotel, his eyes darting away. “You should go back to your meal. Your family’s waiting.”

But Damen didn’t move. His brows drew together, his mouth tightening into a scowl. His eyes caught on Laurent’s cheek - red, faintly swollen in the moonlight. The realisation struck him like a fist. “Who did that to you?”

Laurent froze. He hadn’t thought about the mark, hadn’t thought Damen would notice. He turned his face away too late, heat rushing through him - not just from the sting on his skin, but from the exposure, the shame. “No one, I-”

“Don’t do that,” Damen said, his voice shaking with restrained anger.

Laurent’s throat closed. “Do what?” He shot the words back sharper than he meant, his instinct to push away flaring hot.

“Pretend you’re fine when you’re obviously not,” Damen snapped. His voice was firm, low, almost trembling with fury. “I saw you crying, Laurent. I’m not blind. Someone hit you.” He exhaled hard, trying to rein himself in. His tone softened, though the steel remained. “I’m worried about you.”

The words landed like a blow. For a second, Laurent almost folded, almost let the weight of everything tip into Damen’s waiting hands. The mark on his cheek seemed to burn hotter beneath Damen’s gaze, and the urge to confess - to finally tell someone - rose sharp in his throat.

But panic surged stronger. If Damen knew - if anyone knew - everything would unravel. His uncle’s voice was already there, whispering, warning.

Laurent’s chest tightened. His voice broke out of him, stern and cutting, not a yell but sharp enough to sting: “I can’t tell you. Do you understand? You just…” His breath hitched, betraying him. “You just need to go away. Forget about me.”

The silence that followed was deafening, broken only by the crash of the waves.

Laurent stared at Damen, jaw tight, every nerve in his body screaming with the effort of keeping himself together.

Laurent’s words hung between them, brittle and final. Damen didn’t move away.

Instead, he said, “If you think telling me will make me leave, you’re wrong.”

Laurent gave a short, bitter laugh. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Then explain it.”

“I can’t.” His voice wavered, sharper for it. He hated that it did. “There’s nothing you could do. Nothing anyone could do.”

Damen’s gaze didn’t falter. “Maybe. But I’d still rather know than watch you drown yourself in silence.”

Laurent felt the words like pressure against his chest. He shook his head, retreating into the sharpest edge of himself. “You’re insufferable.”

“Maybe,” Damen said, quiet, steady. “But I’m not leaving you like this.”

Laurent wanted to sneer, wanted to push him away with some cruel remark, but Damen was still there, broad-shouldered and stupidly earnest, offering warmth Laurent didn’t deserve. The longer Damen looked at him, the harder it was to hold the walls intact.

“Stop it,” Laurent said, low.

“Stop what?”

“Looking at me like that.”

“Like what?” Damen’s mouth curved, not unkind. “Like I care?”

Laurent’s breath caught. He wanted to spit back, to remind Damen that he was no one, nothing. But the words wouldn’t come. Damen’s presence pressed against him, steady, unyielding, and Laurent felt something inside him bend, fragile and terrifying.

For once, he couldn’t think. He couldn’t calculate, couldn’t bite. All he could do was feel the pull Damen created, and it made him weak.

“Did something happen with your uncle?”

The question was soft, but it struck Laurent like a blow. He flinched before he could stop himself, his body betraying him.

Damen noticed. His brow furrowed. “Laurent.”

“Don’t,” Laurent said quickly. His voice sounded like glass about to break.

Damen didn’t relent. “Is he-” Damen hesitated, searching Laurent’s face, “is he a bad man? Did he hit you?”

Laurent’s head snapped in a sharp shake. “No.” The word came out too fast, too fierce, like he had to beat it into shape before it could betray him. “He takes care of me. I’m just-” he bit the inside of his cheek, tasting iron - “I’m just an ungrateful brat.”

He could hear it in his uncle’s voice, a litany repeated until it was his own thought. The words settled in him like a weight he’d never learned how to put down.

Damen’s jaw tightened. He leaned closer, lowering his voice but not his resolve. “That’s not true.”

Laurent let out a short, humourless laugh, the sound brittle. “You don’t know anything.”

“I know enough,” Damen said, steady. “I know the way you looked when I asked. I know the way you keep trying to convince yourself you’re the problem. And I know that’s not how it’s supposed to be.”

Laurent shook his head again, desperate to smother the heat rising in his chest. “You think you see something, but you don’t.”

“I see you,” Damen said.

Laurent’s throat closed. For a heartbeat, he thought he might actually collapse under the weight of that simple certainty. He couldn’t look Damen in the eye - because if he did, he might believe him.

Damen’s hand reached for him, slow, deliberate, like he was approaching something fragile that might shatter. Laurent didn’t move, didn’t breathe. He expected the touch to burn, to make his skin crawl like every other time someone’s hand closed on him.

But it didn’t.

Damen’s palm settled against his shoulder, steady and warm. He wasn’t pulling, wasn’t demanding. Just there.

Laurent’s throat tightened. He felt himself go rigid, prepared for the instinct to jerk away - except it never came. He stayed. His body betrayed him again, only this time not with fear but with the awful, aching safety that spread like heat through his chest.

“You make me unable to think,” Laurent whispered, the words torn out before he could bite them back. His voice cracked on the last word.

Damen’s eyes softened, but his grip didn’t. “Then don’t think. Just… stay. Stay out here, with me. Don’t go back.”

The plea twisted something inside Laurent. His breath came uneven. He wanted to - God, he wanted to - but the tide of his uncle’s voice was already there, the familiar chains rattling. He shook his head, staring at the sand beneath their feet.

“I can’t.”

“You can,” Damen pressed, quiet but fierce. “Laurent, you don’t have to go back to him.”

“I do.” Laurent forced his voice to steady, though it wavered anyway. He lifted his eyes, met Damen’s for the briefest second. “I have no choice. There’s no one else. He’s all I have. He’s-” his chest constricted, “-he’s the only one who loves me.”

The words, once spoken, felt poisonous. Laurent hated how small they sounded. He hated how broken they made him.

Damen shook his head, almost violently. “That’s not love. Whatever he makes you believe, it’s not.”

Laurent swallowed hard, his body trembling under Damen’s hand. “You don’t understand.”

“Then explain it,” Damen urged.

“I can’t,” Laurent said, voice harsh, final. “You wouldn’t like me anymore if I did.”

Silence fell between them, broken only by the steady crash of waves. Damen’s hand stayed on him, grounding him even as Laurent tried to pull back into himself.

Damen exhaled, long and quiet, and when he spoke again it was barely above a whisper. “I don’t want to let you walk away tomorrow.”

Laurent closed his eyes. The words cut through him with a sweetness that hurt worse than anything his uncle had ever done. For one suspended moment, he let himself lean into Damen’s hand, just slightly, just enough to feel what it was like to be held without expectation.

Then he stepped back.

“I’m sorry,” he said. It was all he could give, the only truth left.

Damen’s hand fell, fingers curling helplessly at his side. He looked like he wanted to argue again, to beg, but he didn’t. He just stood there, the weight of everything unsaid pressing heavy between them.

Laurent turned away before his resolve could break. Tomorrow, he would leave. Tomorrow, this fragile, impossible week would dissolve.

And Damen - warm, safe, devastating Damen - would be nothing but a memory.

It took every ounce of strength Laurent had to peel himself from Damen’s warmth, to force his legs to move in the direction of the hotel. Each step was heavy, dragging him closer to the suite that smelled of sweat and sex, closer to the man who held his chains.

He stopped once, halfway across the sand. He didn’t turn - he couldn’t bear to see Damen’s face again. But he could hear him, the sharp rhythm of his breathing behind him, uneven, like he was fighting to hold something back.

“Thank you,” Laurent said. His voice was low, careful, steadying itself on the words. “For this week. I… I had a great time.”

The silence that followed was almost unbearable. He gripped his hands into fists to keep from shaking.

“I hope you move on. Forget about me. That would be for the best.”

Behind him, there was the faint crunch of sand, like Damen had taken a step forward. Then his voice, rough in a way Laurent hadn’t heard before, cut through the night.

“Laurent-”

But Laurent was already moving, shoulders set, gaze fixed ahead. He didn’t stop, didn’t look back.

Laurent made it back to the suite on unsteady legs. By the time the door shut behind him, his body felt hollow, as though he’d left something vital out there on the sand with Damen.

His uncle was waiting, arms opening at once, pulling him close, murmuring apologies against his temple. Kisses trailed over his skin, coaxing, claiming. Laurent didn’t flinch, didn’t resist. He didn’t feel anything.

Not when his uncle’s hands moved over him. Not when he took him apart, piece by piece, as though Laurent belonged to no one but him. Not when, afterwards, they lay side by side in the darkened room, his uncle asleep with the slow, heavy breaths of satisfaction.

Laurent stared at the ceiling, eyes dry, chest quiet. He let himself exist and nothing more.

The happy part of him - the fragile, laughing part Damen had uncovered - wasn’t here. He had left it behind: on the beach with the waves, at the market stalls, in the hum of a cafe over cups of coffee. Untouched, unspoiled.

Those memories would stay where they belonged, sealed away in a place his uncle could never reach.

Tomorrow he would go home with his uncle. But that part of him - the part that had felt free, if only for a week - would remain here.

Laurent didn’t see Damen the next morning. He made sure of it. He stayed shut inside the suite, back pressed to the cool wall, listening to the clock tick closer to their departure. When his uncle called, Laurent followed without hesitation, as though he had no will of his own left to resist.

By the time they were on the road, the hotel was already vanishing in the rearview mirror. Laurent sat silent, the window down, the salt-stung wind pulling at his long hair until it whipped across his face.

His uncle’s hand rested heavy on his thigh, a familiar weight, and Laurent let it sit there, numb to its presence.

But his thoughts weren’t numb. They circled back, over and over, to a boy with a smile like sunlight, dimples he hadn’t been able to forget. Damen.

Laurent imagined him scanning the lobby, walking down to the beach, searching the market stalls, waiting. He imagined the moment Damen realised he wasn’t coming. The disappointment, the hurt.

The knowledge that he’d left without a word.

Laurent pressed his eyes shut against the wind. Of all the things he had endured, this was the one he could not forgive himself for.

And still, the car drove on.

Chapter Text

Laurent dreamed of darkness.

It pressed against him on all sides, thick as tar, choking the breath in his throat. Hands slid over his skin - clammy, insistent, too many of them. A tongue licked against his neck, against his mouth, and he jerked away only to find more of them waiting. Bodies crowded him, slick with sweat, their weight suffocating.

He opened his mouth to scream but nothing came out. The silence was worse than the touch, worse than the heat - because it made him invisible, voiceless, a boy trapped in a body that wasn’t his own anymore.

Fifteen. He was fifteen again, and it would never end.

The dark swallowed him whole.

Laurent opened his eyes.

No jolt, no gasp - just the slow, heavy drag of lids lifting. The same ceiling waited above him, mottled with damp, the dark stain spreading out like rot from the corner. He traced it with his eyes, the way he had every morning.

The couch beneath him itched through the thin sheet, the coils bruising his back where the mattress had given way. From the kitchen came the faint, steady hum of the refrigerator. Down the hall, the softer rhythm of Nicaise’s breathing in the bedroom. Ordinary sounds. Safe sounds.

There was a hole in his chest where the dream had been, and where everything else should be. The nightmares didn’t make him cry, not anymore. They only hollowed him out, left him shaking faintly as though his bones remembered more than his mind would let him.

He pressed the heel of his hand against his sternum, willing the tremor to stop. One thought steadied him, the one he carried like a talisman each morning:

He’s dead.

Uncle was dead. Yet Laurent still woke like this.

He let the silence hold him for a heartbeat longer, then swung his legs over the couch and stood. Movement felt rehearsed - slow, mechanical - the kind of motion you make when you are half a ghost. He moved through the small apartment as if walking through someone else’s memories.

The kettle clicked on in the kitchen and began its thin hum. He left it and headed to the bathroom.

He stepped into the shower, letting the hot water stitch him together for a little while. The spray mapped the hollows of him; each drop down his ribs felt like he was fifteen again - always too small, always trying to make himself disappear. The soap slid from his fingers and left behind only the ache of muscle and skin.

He dressed without looking in the mirror. His hands moved on their own, pulling on the same pieces they always did - an old T-shirt, a faded hoodie, jeans worn soft at the seams. The clothes barely fit anymore, stretched and tired, but they were all he had. His uncle had bought them for him when he was seventeen.

He caught only the edge of his reflection as he passed the bathroom mirror and kept his eyes away. Seeing himself was dangerous; it asked questions he didn’t have the courage to answer.

Behind the medicine cabinet, in a tin he had wedged into the warped wood months ago, his anti-depressants waited. He opened the cabinet with two calm fingers, shook out a pale pill, and swallowed it dry.

They tasted metallic and wrong and made his stomach roll; they made him heavy, dulled the sharpness at the edges. He had learned the timetable of them - how the nausea would ache like a bruise for an hour, how his limbs would feel leaden for the afternoon. He swallowed anyway.

If he missed them, the spiral came faster now than it had before. Social services had said the word once in a clipped, pitying voice: unstable. They had suggested assessments, questioned the wisdom of a twenty-two year old living alone with a teenager. Laurent had heard the threat like a new language and learned to obey it.

He took the pills because the thought of Nicaise being taken - of a stranger deciding what was best for him - made something hot and animal rise in his throat. He would do whatever small humiliations and slow poisons it took to keep the kid where he belonged.

Social services had been the reason Nicaise had been placed into Uncle’s home.

Laurent had been sixteen then, still trapped under his uncle’s hands. He had watched, helpless, as a child too young to understand the world’s cruelty was broken against it.

Nicaise had been an innocent child the day he arrived in their home. But Uncle, and Laurent, had made him suffer in ways Laurent had already known all too well. Laurent had stayed silent, had stayed obedient, had stayed small, all whilst Nicaise suffered the same fate he had.

For two more years, Laurent had lain in his own misery, walled in by memories and bruises and the constant humiliation of a body that was not young enough anymore. He had been discarded by Uncle, left like trash to rot quietly, while Nicaise, untouched in comparison, got the remnants of the life Laurent had lived since his brother had died.

Nicaise got Uncle’s attention, his affection, his protection - everything Laurent had been denied since he’d “grown up”. Laurent had become “a regular whore,” Uncle’s words sharp and cutting, thrown at him like punishment.

He had been sent to strangers - scary men, cruel men, mean men, and sometimes, terrifyingly, sweet men who made him want to vomit. Meanwhile, Nicaise had been loved, cared for, shielded from the worst.

For years, that resentment had lived in him quietly, a bitter knot he refused to untangle. He had blamed Nicaise for the attention he had been denied, for the comfort that had been stolen from him, even though deep down he knew it was unfair.

It had taken Uncle’s death for Laurent to truly grow up - to see clearly that he had been misplacing his anger. It had never been that eleven-year-old boy’s fault. Never.

Now, 4 years later, he would never abandon Nicaise again. Never let him enter the system again. If taking pills, staying exhausted, keeping his body bruised by invisible chains was what it took to prevent the system from tearing Nicaise away, he would do it without hesitation. He would shoulder it all, endure it all, and vanish if necessary - because this time, he could not fail the boy.

The thought sharpened him, made him rigid as he stepped out into the hall. Every ache in his limbs, every twinge in his chest, every bitter taste of medicine in his mouth: it was a small price to pay. Nicaise’s life - his safety, his innocence, his chance at something better - was a debt Laurent had vowed never to default on.

Laurent padded down the narrow hallway, the boards creaking under his weight. At the far end was the apartment’s only bedroom. That was Nicaise’s space - his and his alone. Laurent had made sure of it, which was why he slept on the pull-out couch in the living room. The boy deserved four walls and a door he could close.

Nicaise was asleep, curled on his side, the blanket tangled around his legs. His face was slack in rare peace. He got nightmares too - violent, shattering things that sometimes dragged him screaming awake. But not this morning.

This morning he was still, his breath steady, his chest rising and falling in the same rhythm that had once comforted Laurent in the worst of nights. That sight made something in Laurent unclench.

At the end of the bed, draped across Nicaise’s feet, was the cat. Officially, Nicaise had named her Marquise. Unofficially, Laurent had named her Miss Dickhead. Laurent had never called her anything else.

She’d arrived without warning one evening, scrawny and streaked with grime, a ratty street-thing that looked like it had fought with death and nearly won. Nicaise had simply carried her in and dropped her onto the mattress, declaring she was theirs.

Laurent, nineteen then, exhausted and failing in more ways than he could count, hadn’t had it in him to argue. He wouldn’t have had the heart to tell the boy no, not when he’d been twelve and clinging to something - anything - that looked like softness. If a scrappy little cat made the kid smile, then fine.

Laurent stepped into the bedroom, the air heavy with sleep. Miss Dickhead flicked her tail at him from her perch at the foot of the bed. He clicked his tongue and gave her a light shove until she hopped down with a disdainful flick of her ears. Then he crossed to the window, tugged the curtains open, and let in the grey daylight.

“Up,” he said. “You’ll be late.”

Nicaise groaned and dragged the blanket over his head. “Five more minutes.”

Laurent didn’t yield. “Now.”

The boy muttered something unintelligible but shoved the blanket aside, swinging his legs over the edge of the mattress. His auburn curls stuck up in every direction, a mess of tangles and cowlicks. Laurent reached out automatically, smoothing them down, ruffling them with a touch that was more maternal than he liked to admit.

Nicaise ducked away, cheeks pink, retreating toward the bathroom. He shut the door behind him with a pointed click, the shower sputtering on a moment later.

Laurent stood for a beat in the empty room, watching the steam creep under the bathroom door. Then he turned back to the kitchen, the floor cold under his feet, and set about making toast - dry and quick, enough to get something in Nicaise before school.

Laurent had already decided: no breakfast. He knew better. Knew the pills hit harder on an empty stomach, knew the warning labels and the doctor’s clipped instructions. But the nightmare had left its sour film across his tongue, and the thought of food only twisted his gut tighter. Coffee would have to be enough.

He poured it black into a chipped mug and sat with it steaming between his hands. The bitter smell steadied him, grounded him in something sharp and simple.

Nicaise padded back in, dressed in his uniform, damp curls plastered to his forehead. Laurent slid the toast across the table toward him without comment. He sat opposite, cupping his mug like it could warm more than just his fingers.

Nicaise glanced at the plate, then at Laurent. His eyes narrowed, a sharp flash of green. “Not hungry?”

The guilt landed instantly, heavy as lead. Laurent could feel it in the pit where food should have gone. Nicaise already had too much to carry - exams, the endless catch-up that came from a childhood fractured, the thousand little responsibilities a boy his age should never have to think about. Laurent didn’t want to add himself to that list.

But he knew the truth was written plain on his body. They both knew. The skipped meals, the way his clothes hung looser each month. They just never said it. Couldn’t. It was too big, too ugly, too dangerous a thing to name.

So this was how they did it instead - pointed remarks from Nicaise, guilty deflections from Laurent. He forced a shrug, took a sip of coffee he couldn’t taste.

“I’ll eat at work,” he lied smoothly. “I’ll have a big lunch, don’t worry.”

Nicaise rolled his eyes, muttered something under his breath, and bit into the toast. It was their ritual: accusation, denial, false promises. A broken kind of care, but care all the same.

Laurent could feel the weight of Nicaise’s stare still on him, so he reached for the first distraction that came to mind.

“So,” he said lightly, as if it were nothing at all, “how are things with the boy?”

It worked instantly. Nicaise’s cheeks flamed pink, his hand hitting against the plate as he tried to stuff down a too large bite of toast. “What boy?” he mumbled through crumbs.

Laurent raised an eyebrow. “The one you won’t shut up about when you come home from school. The one with the bad haircut.”

Nicaise groaned and ducked his head, suddenly intent on finishing breakfast as quickly as possible. The tips of his ears were scarlet. Laurent let himself smile, small and fleeting.

Moments like this made him feel almost normal. Made them both look almost normal - like two brothers at a kitchen table, one teasing the other about a crush. Like they didn’t have a past. Like their lives were theirs to shape, untouched by anyone else’s hands.

It reminded Laurent of a time before everything had rotted. Those years after their parents’ deaths, when Auguste had tried to raise him. Auguste had been stern but steady, the kind of anchor Laurent thought might hold forever. Until the night Laurent found him hanging in the bathroom, a rope cutting his brother’s last breath short.

They had said Auguste had suffered with depression too, that grief and responsibility had carved him hollow. That raising a child alone had been too much. That he had been drunk and killing himself had been an impulsive decision.

Maybe it had. Maybe it hadn’t.

Laurent swallowed against the bitterness in his throat, watching Nicaise fumble with his toast and blush over nothing. He would not follow in Auguste’s footsteps. He couldn’t.

Not while Nicaise was still here.

Nicaise finished his toast with the air of someone accepting defeat, then scraped back his chair and shouldered his bag.

“Have a good day,” Laurent said with his mug in hand. “Do well.”

Nicaise grumbled, made a show of rolling his eyes, but he didn’t argue. He never really did when it came to school. They both knew how much it mattered.

Laurent had had that stolen from him, ripped out of his hands before he’d even had the chance to finish growing into them. To see Nicaise going each day, complaining like any other teenager, made something warm settle in Laurent’s chest. At least the boy’s childhood hadn’t been completely stolen.

The door shut behind him, his footsteps fading down the stairwell. Silence folded back into the apartment.

Miss Dickhead slunk in from the bedroom, tail flicking, golden eyes sharp as coins. Laurent crouched to pour dry food into her bowl, the rattle loud in the quiet. She bent to eat without acknowledging him, arrogant as ever. He envied it, that kind of selfish certainty.

He refilled his mug, the second coffee already cooling between his palms, and let himself sit for a moment in the stillness. Just him and the cat. Then the clock ticked over and told him it was time to move.

He grabbed his jacket, scarf, keys, and the thin wallet he could never quite keep full, then locked the door behind him and stepped out into the day.

Laurent walked the half hour into the centre, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, the morning air damp against his skin.

The motel waited for him like it always did: a sagging building that had once been painted white, now dulled to the colour of old teeth. It didn’t pay well, but they hadn’t asked him for certificates or qualifications, hadn’t asked anything at all except that he showed up when he was told to.

So he did.

The day passed in small repetitions. He smiled thinly at customers as they checked in, passed over keycards, answered the same handful of questions. He listened to complaints about the air conditioning, the thin walls, the stains on the carpets, and murmured apologies in the tone he had learned to use - polite, blank, unshakable. His uncle had once taught him how to wear that voice, that face. Now it paid his rent.

Sometimes, in the back office, there was other work. Different customer service. He never called it anything else in his head. The motel had men passing through, men who looked at him a certain way. Laurent had known what that look meant for years, and he knew what to do with it. If it meant a few more notes folded into his wallet, enough to keep the bills paid and Nicaise fed, then so be it.

He didn’t think about whether it was right or wrong. He thought about the boy at school, the toast in the morning, the cat curling herself against Nicaise’s feet. That was what mattered. If this was the price, he would keep paying it.

At lunch, Laurent forced down a small sandwich, the bread dry against his tongue. He told himself it was enough. He told himself he was doing it for Nicaise - that if he didn’t eat at least something, he’d be too weak to keep working, too weak to keep the boy safe. Thinking of Nicaise made it easier to chew, easier to swallow.

The rest of the day blurred by in the rhythm of check-ins and complaints. By the time his shift ended, night had already dragged its weight across the sky. He walked home through streets sharp with winter air, his breath clouding, his nose and cheeks raw with cold. They flushed red, bright against his pale skin, and he knew before he’d even reached the apartment door that Nicaise would notice.

He was right. The boy smirked when Laurent came in, coat still buttoned tight. “You look ridiculous,” Nicaise said, flicking at his red nose like it was a button. Laurent only shook his head and set his bag down, but some small corner of him warmed at the teasing.

Nicaise had already finished his homework, neat stacks of paper pushed aside on the table. So they curled up together on the pull-out couch, a film playing low on the old television. Nicaise tucked under his arm, head on Laurent’s shoulder; Laurent’s hand resting lightly against the boy’s curls. For a little while, it was easy to pretend.

When the clock edged too close to seven, Laurent stood and shrugged into his coat again. “There’s food in the fridge,” he said, pulling his scarf tighter around his throat. “Don’t wait up for me.”

Nicaise frowned. “And you?”

Laurent offered the practiced lie with steady eyes. “I had a big lunch.”

Nicaise didn’t call him on it. He never did. He only made a skeptical noise and turned back toward the television, and Laurent left before the guilt could catch up to him.

The night air cut colder than it had that morning, the wind sharp against Laurent’s face. He tugged his scarf higher and kept walking, hands buried deep in his pockets. The streets blurred into greys and yellows, streetlamps buzzing overhead, puddles catching the dull reflection of the sky.

He tried to steady himself with each step. Tried to remind himself why he was doing this. For weeks now, he’d been coming here - to the charity-run night classes for adults who hadn’t graduated high school. To sit in plastic chairs under buzzing fluorescent lights and be reminded of everything he’d lost, everything Uncle had taken from him.

It was humiliating sometimes. The questions he didn’t know, the numbers that twisted themselves out of reach, the way the pen felt clumsy in his hand when it should have been second nature. The frustration ate at him, told him he was stupid, told him he didn’t belong here.

But then he thought of Nicaise, hunched over his homework at the kitchen table, curls falling into his face as he scowled at equations and grammar exercises. The boy had a chance. He had a future Laurent refused to let anyone steal. And if it meant clawing back some kind of qualification to give the kid a better life, something that might one day pay better than the motel, then Laurent would keep showing up.

He was tired tonight, his body heavy with the day’s weight. When he slipped into the classroom, the lesson hadn’t started yet. Still, the scrape of the chair felt loud as he pulled it back, settling into a seat at the very back. Head low, shoulders drawn in. He didn’t want to be noticed. Not tonight.

Laurent forced his eyes to the front, pen poised above the blank page in front of him. Focus. He told himself he needed to focus. But his stomach knotted tighter with every breath, his head pounding like a drum. Maybe he should just leave. Go home, crawl back onto the couch, let the dark swallow him for the night.

But then Nicaise would notice. Nicaise would know something was wrong, and Laurent couldn’t let him carry that. So he stayed, forcing himself still, forcing himself small.

He was so far inside the spiral he didn’t hear the door open, didn’t notice the shuffle of papers at the front of the room. It was the voice that dragged him back - warm, unfamiliar, not the clipped tone of their usual teacher.

Laurent looked up.

The man standing there was tall, broad-shouldered, built like sunlight might bend around him. His smile cut dimples into his cheeks, easy and unguarded, and something strange fluttered in Laurent’s chest. A memory, almost, rising like salt air - sea breeze in his lungs, the sharp tang of coffee on his tongue, the sound of waves breaking against the shore.

“Hello,” the man said. “Your usual teacher is out sick with the flu today, so I’ll be covering. You can call me Damen.”

Laurent’s heart stopped.

Damen.

The name cracked open something he had buried deep, and for a dizzying moment all he could see was his teenage self, fifteen and raw, sitting on a beach beside this boy, laughing, alive. That week in the hotel, the first time he’d felt seen, the first time someone had made him feel safe.

But fate wasn’t real. This wasn’t possible. Damen couldn’t be here, standing at the front of his night class, looking like the years had only sharpened him.

Laurent’s pulse thundered, panic clawing up his throat. Damen couldn’t see him like this. Not after everything. Not when Laurent had left without saying goodbye. Damen must hate him - of course he did. Laurent would hate himself, too.

He dropped his gaze to the desk, knuckles white around the pen, as though hiding might undo the impossible.

Laurent kept his eyes fixed on the page, the pen unmoving in his hand. He told himself not to look up again, not to risk it - but the pull was impossible. His gaze flicked upward, caught Damen’s for the briefest heartbeat, and then he dropped it, heat crawling across his face.

He prayed Damen hadn’t recognised him. Seven years had passed. He was a little taller and the baby fat his uncle used to poke and prod was gone, burned off by time and lean living, and with it, the softness in his face that people used to call pretty.

His hair was shorter now, though still longer than most men wore theirs, tied low at the nape of his neck in a plain ponytail. He thought of tugging up the hood of his jumper, hiding his face in the fabric, but the movement would only draw attention.

His heart hammered in his chest, each beat louder than the last. Sweat prickled down his spine, his throat tight, breath coming shallow and quick. It felt like the edge of a panic attack, the room narrowing, sound distorting.

But then - Damen’s voice. Calm, steady, filling the classroom. He moved easily through the lesson, pointing to the board, leaning down to answer a student’s question with the same patience he’d had as a boy. Laurent found himself staring, not at the work in front of him but at Damen himself.

It was dangerous, but it steadied him. Just as it had all those years ago. Back then, on the beach, when the world had felt too heavy, he had looked at Damen and found air in his lungs again. It was the same now.

He focused on him, on the way his dimples flashed when he smiled, on the warmth in his voice, on the ease with which he filled a space. Little by little, the panic eased, replaced with something quieter, almost mournful. He was still terrified, still sick with dread at being recognised, but beneath it all was that old, impossible feeling: safety.

The lesson folded up around them - papers rustling, a few chairs scraping - and Laurent moved before he’d planned to, shoving his bag under his arm, shoulders hunched. He wanted to be anywhere but here. He wanted to run until his legs burned.

“Laurent?”

The name - soft, certain - stopped him like a hand on his shoulder. He froze. For a few ragged heartbeats he could not tell if it was the sound of the name or the way it landed that made everything tilt. Damen’s eyes were on him. Damen recognised him.

He couldn’t pretend ignorance. He had no right to.

Damen crossed the aisle and stood a little way from him, the classroom light catching the planes of his face. He looked older, yes, but the dimples were the same; the smile was the same too, though it had a cautiousness now, like someone addressing a skittish animal.

“I knew it was you,” he said, voice low. “You’re here… why are you-?” He hesitated, then gave a small, sad half-smile. “You’re still as beautiful as that week.”

Laurent flinched as if struck. There was a taste in his mouth like metal. He squeezed his jaw shut and answered in a clipped thing that felt borrowed from somebody else. “If you just came over to flirt with me, I’m leaving.”

Damen’s smile didn’t falter; it shifted instead into something gentler. “I’m sorry - God, I’m sorry, that was… I never-” He stopped, struggling with the memory. “I looked for you. The morning you left.”

The words opened something and Laurent wanted to curl away from it. Heat crawled up from his stomach and his hands trembled. He could feel the old panic crouching at his ribs, the urge to go home and make himself small enough to disappear, to be sick until the noise stopped. He tasted bile and wanted to heave. He kept his face carefully blank.

“What do you want?” He kept the question sharp. Defensive. It was easier than answering when someone asked how he’d been for the last seven years.

Damen’s eyes darkened with something like regret. “Nothing,” he said. “I - only to talk to you. To know you were okay… I never stopped thinking about that week. I never stopped wondering how you were. Maybe we could catch up? Go for coffee?”

Laurent’s throat tightened. He could hear the small, sensible voice in his head - don’t tell him, don’t let him see this. So he deflected. “I’ve got to go home, my kid is waiting for me,” he said abruptly.

Damen blinked, surprise washing over his expression. “You - what? You have a child?”

Laurent felt himself go cold. “He’s fifteen,” he said. “I’m his guardian. I take care of him. That’s why I-” He stopped. Saying why would be saying more than he wanted to. Saying why would be admitting how much he still owed the world in blood and shame.

Damen’s gaze dropped for a moment, reading him, then met him again with an awkward gentleness. “Like… like your uncle was your guardian?” he asked, and instantly his mouth softened into an apology when he saw the way Laurent’s face closed.

Laurent’s whole body recoiled. The name of his uncle was a bruise that never quite healed. He had no right to clatter it across this fragile rapprochement. He only managed, “Don’t.”

Damen swallowed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-”

“You didn’t have to mean anything,” Laurent cut in. The words turned brittle then fragile. He could feel the room tilt, the past and the present stacking up until the weight was almost too much. “I need to go, Damen.”

Damen paused, then reached into his pocket with a careful, almost shy motion. “Still - can I have your number? If you don’t want coffee, I understand. I just - I'd like to keep in touch. If that’s possible.”

There was something hopeful in the offer, and also a mourning - that regret for the boy he’d lost sight of, and for the part of Laurent that had been left behind. Laurent wanted to refuse. He wanted to run. He also wanted, in a small, sudden, fearful way, to see if the safety he’d felt in that remembered week could be found again now that the years had been added on.

He hesitated, fingers fumbling with the strap of his bag. Finally he gave his phone over, voice low. “Fine.”

Damen’s smile this time was tentative and bright. He typed, glanced up as if to memorise Laurent’s face, then one last question parked itself in his eyes. “Are you - okay?”

Laurent felt the old impulse rise like smoke: to make himself smaller, to punish, to disappear. He thought of Nicaise curled on the couch, of Miss Dickhead’s imperious tail, of pieces of life he refused to risk losing. He drew in a breath and managed something that passed for steadiness.

“I’m fine,” he lied. “I have to go.”

He turned and moved for the door, the classroom lights blurring at the edges. Behind him Damen’s voice was softer than he expected. “I’m really happy to see you, Laurent.”

Laurent stepped out into the night like someone stepping out of a window into cold air. His legs were lead and his chest a raw, hollow thing. He had a name in his phone that made his fingers itch; he had a past that had marched up to him on a Tuesday night and called him by the name he’d run from. He walked, and the city swallowed him, leaving the taste of sea air and coffee and something like both mercy and mourning in his mouth.

The apartment was dark when Laurent let himself in, the only light the flicker of the television. On the couch, Nicaise was curled in a blanket, eyes on some gory horror film, the volume low. He glanced up when Laurent entered, the screen flashing blood-red across his face, but he didn’t say anything.

Laurent dropped his bag and sank down beside him. His body was leaden, his nerves still buzzing with the echo of a name spoken aloud, of a smile he’d once thought he’d never see again. He didn’t have it in him to scold about the hour or the movie choice. He just leaned into the boy’s warmth, letting his shoulder press against his.

Nicaise didn’t ask questions. He never did when Laurent looked like this. He shifted the blanket so Laurent could tuck himself under, and after a long silence Laurent let himself slip sideways, head pillowed on Nicaise’s narrow lap. The boy’s hand came up automatically, fingers carding through Laurent’s hair in slow, casual strokes.

The gesture was nothing, wordless and instinctive, but it unstrung something deep inside him. He closed his eyes, breath evening out as the pull of exhaustion grew heavier.

But sleep wouldn’t be easy. Not with his mind pulled taut between the ache in his chest and the shadows behind his eyes. Damen’s face - older, stronger, impossibly familiar - still lingered in his head. The sound of the waves, the taste of coffee, the sunlit safety of that single week.

And here, now, the boy he loved more than himself, more than breath, sitting so still, holding him up without words.

And beneath it all - the self-loathing, sharp as glass. The certainty that he was ugly, tainted, a body ruined by too many hands. He did not deserve Damen’s smile, nor Nicaise’s quiet devotion. He would ruin them both, eventually.

He lay there anyway, letting the boy’s fingers soothe him, eyes half-shut against the television’s flicker. Somewhere between memory and exhaustion, caught in the jagged space between what he wanted and what he feared he was.

The credits rolled, the screen washing the room in pale light before it went dark. Nicaise flicked the remote aside and wriggled down on the sofa, tugging the blanket higher. Laurent followed without a word, shifting until they were lying side by side beneath the covers, shoulder to shoulder. The cushions dipped under their combined weight, the closeness instinctive by now.

For a while they just listened to the hum of the fridge, the muted noise of the street outside. Then Nicaise whispered, his voice so quiet Laurent almost missed it.

“I did well on my test today.”

Laurent turned his head on the pillow, just enough to see the outline of his face in the dimness. “Yeah?”

A small nod, curls brushing the fabric. “Thought you’d want to know.”

That simple truth hit Laurent harder than it should have. Warmth pushed through the hollow ache in his chest. He reached for Nicaise under the blanket, pulling him close, his grip firm, almost desperate.

“Good,” he murmured, voice rough with sleep and something deeper. “That’s good.”

Nicaise said nothing else. He only let Laurent hold on, his breathing slow, his body loose against him. The weight of him, the warmth, the quiet - it soothed.

The two of them lay there in the dark, bound by something neither of them ever had to name. Two boys marked by the same violence, carrying it differently, but holding one another up in ways no one else could understand.

Laurent woke stiff and uncomfortable, still wrapped in yesterday’s clothes, the blanket twisted around his legs. His mouth was dry, his head heavy. Beside him, Nicaise was curled into the cushions, breathing deep, hair falling into his eyes. He looked younger in sleep. Safer.

Laurent stared at the ceiling. The memory of the night before rose up like a bruise pressed too hard - Damen’s smile, Damen’s voice saying his name, the shock of recognition. For years Laurent had tucked that boy away in some hidden corner of his mind, locked tight, preserved. The one good week of his youth. Untouched. Untainted.

He hadn’t thought he’d ever see him again when he moved them to Akielos three years ago. He hadn’t dared imagine it. Damen had been a memory, a fragment of sun on a grey horizon, and memories were safer left as they were.

Now - Laurent reached for his phone on the coffee table, thumb hovering before he unlocked it. The screen glowed in the dim morning, four unread messages from an unknown number. His chest tightened.

He opened them.

Hi, it’s Damen. Just wanted to make sure you got home safe.

Sorry if that’s weird. I just… wanted to check.

It was really good to see you again. I didn’t know if I’d ever. Yeah.

I don’t want to bother you, but if you ever want coffee (no pressure at all), I’d really like to catch up.

The words blurred a little as Laurent read them, a stinging ache swelling in his chest. They were clumsy, earnest, too open - and they were so utterly, painfully Damen.

Laurent’s pulse quickened as he scrolled, his heart thudding too hard in his chest. The corners of his mouth betrayed him, tugging upward, and before he could stop himself he felt heat creep across his cheeks. Blushing - ridiculous, adolescent, and utterly unlike him.

It wasn’t fear. Usually, when someone threatened to brush against the fragile walls of the life he’d built around himself and Nicaise, dread rose first, sharp and suffocating. But now… now it was something else. Something closer to curiosity.

“Who are you texting?”

Laurent flinched, thumb stabbing the screen dark. He twisted to find Nicaise leaning over his shoulder, curls wild from sleep, his grin sly.

“Nothing,” Laurent said too quickly, the word clipped, defensive.

The boy’s eyes lit with mischief. “Have you got a secret boyfriend?” He almost sang it, scooping up Marquise as she padded by, the cat slung carelessly in his arms like a prize.

“No.” The denial was flat, cold. Too cold.

Nicaise smirked, undeterred. “Mmh. Sure. That’s why your face is red.”

Laurent felt heat spike across his cheeks and ears, and he hated himself for it. “It’s not.”

“It is,” Nicaise said, grinning as the cat laid down on the sofa. “What’s he like? Old? Ugly? RICH?”

Laurent’s jaw clenched. “It’s not anyone.”

“You wouldn’t tell me even if it was,” Nicaise teased, pouting like a brat. “Because you’re secretive.”

“I’m private,” Laurent snapped.

“Same thing.”

“Nicaise-” Laurent started, his voice fraying with sharpness, but the boy only laughed, picking the cat back up and slipping away toward the bathroom. Marquise dangled limply in his arms, purring like she was in on the joke.

The last thing Laurent heard before the door clicked shut was Nicaise’s voice drifting back, wickedly sweet: “Don’t send him anything gross whilst I’m gone!”

Laurent buried his face in his hand, shame burning so hot he thought it might hollow him out from the inside.

When the door clicked shut, Laurent finally felt like he could breathe. He turned the phone back over in his hand, screen glowing once more, the five messages still waiting. Earnest. Awkward. Kind.

He read them again. And again. His lips pressed into a thin line as he tapped out a reply.

Got home safe.

Nothing more. No mention of coffee, no invitation to open a door that might not close again.

He hesitated, then pressed send, his heart skittering, his lips still tight as though he could hold the feeling in by force.

Morning blurred into routine: Nicaise scarfing down toast while Laurent reminded him not to miss the bus, the boy muttering complaints that never had teeth; Laurent pulling on his jacket and checking his wallet, already calculating the day ahead. By the time they stepped out into the cold, the teasing from earlier had been buried under habit. The messages stayed where they were, tucked away in Laurent’s pocket, silent. Forgotten - or at least pushed down.

At the motel, the hours bled together. He checked guests in, answered the phone, fixed the printer when it jammed again. He kept his voice level, his posture neat. He was good at this, the surface-level charm. Customers left satisfied, even if he felt nothing underneath.

Then his phone buzzed in his pocket. Once. Twice. Three times.

On his short break, he slid it out, thumb brushing the cracked screen. Damen again.

How’s your day going?

What are you up to these days?

How have you been, really?

Laurent’s stomach knotted. He should ignore them - he knew he should - but his fingers betrayed him.

Slow.

Working.

Busy.

Three replies, clipped and neat, enough to acknowledge but not invite.

A guest tapped the desk, demanding help with a double booking. Laurent slid the phone back into his pocket, pulling on the mask he wore for strangers, patient and polite until the complaint was smoothed over.

When he returned to the desk, his phone buzzed again. Damen had already replied.

Busy’s good.

Better than being bored, anyway.

What’s your job - do you like it?

Laurent stared at the screen, jaw tight. Why would Damen care? He tapped out, Receptionist. It pays and shoved the phone away.

But at his next break, curiosity tugged him back. Another message blinked on the screen.

Fair answer.

I used to work at a beach bar before I became a teacher - a lot of drunk tourists, a lot of sand everywhere. Still better than paperwork.

Laurent surprised himself with a huff of air, something like a laugh. His thumb hovered, then typed: Depends on the tourists.

The reply came before his shift even gave him time to pocket the phone.

True. Some were… better company than others.

Laurent’s face heated. He locked the screen, stuffed the phone away, and buried himself in work.

But by the time his next break came, he found himself pulling the phone out again before he even sat down. Damen’s messages were light, easy.

So when did you move to Akeilos?

Laurent hesitated, thumb tapping the screen. That felt too close, too personal. Still, he typed: Three years ago.

Three years? That’s a big move from Vere. What made you decide?

He swallowed, staring at this phone. He deleted three versions of the reply before sending the fourth: Needed a fresh start.

Damen didn’t press.

Makes sense. I like it here. Well I have lived here my whole life.

Laurent put the phone down. He should stop. But then it buzzed again.

Hey, by the way - who’s the kid? The one you mentioned last night?

Laurent’s chest tightened. My brother. Nicaise. He’s not my real brother, just legally.

He sounds like trouble.

Laurent surprised himself by smiling faintly. He is.

Another buzz.

But good trouble?

He chewed his lip. Yeah.

There was a pause, long enough for Laurent to think Damen might be finished. Then-

Got any pets?

Laurent snorted, thumbs moving without thought: No. Just a parasite my brother dragged in one day.

When Damen sent back a question mark, Laurent clarified: She’s a cat.

The reply came with a string of laughing emojis.

“Parasite” is a very dignified title. Bet she lives up to it.

She bites.

Sounds like you’re outnumbered.

Laurent leaned back in his chair, staring at the thread. He hadn’t meant to share any of this. And yet, here it was: Damen asking, Laurent answering. His life unfolding in short bursts of words, not the whole truth but… enough.

It was terrifying. It was dangerous.

And it was… nice.

He found himself pausing before hitting send, not because he was wary, but because he wanted to phrase it right. To give Damen something worth replying to.

By the end of the day, the conversation had become a steady rhythm. Laurent would check in customers, his phone buzzing quietly in his pocket, and he’d feel his heart kick - anticipation, almost. He knew he should shut it down, should delete the number and close the door before Damen wasted another second on him.

And yet.

Every break, he was there. Thinking about Damen’s dimples, his laugh, the way sea air had clung to him all those years ago.

And replying.

The apartment was quiet, the kind of silence that pressed in at the edges. Nicaise was out, tangled up with his new circle of friends, and Miss Dickhead had disappeared somewhere into the shadows, probably plotting her next attack. Laurent sat on the sofa in his hoodie, a cooling cup of coffee forgotten on the table.

His phone was beside him, face-down, but he could feel the weight of it like a stone. He thought of the thread waiting there, Damen’s easy questions, Laurent’s guarded replies that had somehow grown softer, warmer as the hours passed.

And then it struck him.

He hadn’t asked Damen a single thing. Not once. The conversation had been one-sided, Laurent taking and taking - answers, patience, lighthearted jokes. He felt selfish. Worse: exposed.

His thumb hovered. He pulled the phone into his hand and flicked through the thread, scrolling up past every bubble of Damen’s voice, the dimples he could almost hear in the text. He read them twice, three times, and the guilt settled heavier in his chest.

This wasn’t safe. It never was.

With a breath caught sharp in his throat, Laurent deleted the thread. The whole conversation vanished, leaving nothing but the cold expanse of an empty screen. He blocked the number before he could change his mind, before some treacherous part of him thought about waiting for the next message, the next flash of Damen’s name.

The phone went flying, landing somewhere behind the sofa with a muffled thud. Out of sight, out of reach.

Laurent stretched out across the cushions, staring at the water stain on the ceiling, and told himself the truth he had always known: he couldn’t have nice things. Nice things were a trick, a lure. They always soured, always came with consequences.

It had been enough - too much - to see Damen again, to hear his voice and remember the sun. Tomorrow his regular teacher would be back. Damen would vanish the way he should have years ago, a beautiful memory locked away.

It was for the best.

He closed his eyes, the hollow of his chest aching like an old wound.

But his teacher wasn’t back the next day.

Laurent walked into the classroom late, hood tugged up, prepared for dull familiarity - and froze. Damen was there again, at the front of the room, smiling faintly as he took attendance. Only it wasn’t the same smile. The dimples were dulled, his voice steady but thinner at the edges. His shoulders seemed heavier somehow.

Laurent sank into his chair, pulse thrumming. He had thought deleting the messages would close that door, neat and final. Instead, it felt like Damen had read the silence, and had understood what it meant. And it had hurt him.

The whole lesson Laurent’s eyes kept slipping forward, catching on Damen’s face. Watching him. Damen distracted, subdued, not the bright, open boy Laurent remembered. It was wrong. Damen wasn’t supposed to look like that. Damen was sunshine. Laurent was the rain.

By the end of class Laurent’s stomach was in knots. As soon as the books closed, he shoved his things into his bag and bolted, weaving through the rows, ignoring the sound of his name being called - low, urgent, please.

He made it as far as the exit. Then a hand closed around his wrist.

The touch dragged him backwards in time: seven years gone, the echo of waves on stone, a narrow cave mouth, a boy’s warm hand gripping his arm to keep him from running.

Back then Laurent had yanked free, retreating into the safety of silence.

Now, older, heavier with everything he carried, he didn’t pull away. He just stood there, frozen, heart pounding so hard he felt it in his throat. Damen’s hand was warm, steady.

“Laurent - wait!”

The sound of his name was low, rough with something Laurent didn’t want to name. Damen’s grip stayed firm but careful on his wrist, like holding him too tightly might scare him off.

Laurent turned slowly, pulse hammering in his ears. Damen’s eyes met his, wide and pained, and Laurent had to fight the urge to flinch.

“I’m sorry,” Damen said, the words tumbling out in a rush. “I shouldn’t have - yesterday, all the messages, pushing like that. I didn’t mean to be-” He broke off, dragging a hand through his hair, his mouth twisting. “Interfering. Forcing myself on you. I thought-” His voice caught, dimples flashing not with joy but with embarrassment. “I thought maybe you’d want to hear from me. But if you don’t-”

Laurent blinked, struck dumb. His stomach twisted, shame gnawing at him. This - this was because of him. Because he’d blocked the number, erased the thread. Damen hadn’t been wrong, hadn’t been cruel, hadn’t been anything but warm and kind, and Laurent had turned it into rejection.

Damen looked stricken, standing there in the doorway like he’d broken something fragile without meaning to. He let go of Laurent’s wrist at once, hands falling helplessly to his sides. “If I’ve made you uncomfortable, I’m sorry. I never wanted that.”

For a moment Laurent couldn’t speak. His throat burned. He wanted to tell Damen he hadn’t done anything wrong. That Damen never had. That every misstep, every cut, every scar between them had been his.

Instead he only whispered, raw, “You didn’t.”

Damen’s brows furrowed. “Laurent-”

But Laurent couldn’t bear it, not the worry in Damen’s face, not the tenderness in his voice. He stepped back, creating distance, his chest aching with the weight of the apology he couldn’t make.

“You didn’t.” Laurent said again, voice too thin, almost lost under the slamming of the exit door as the last students filed out.

Damen blinked. “What?”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Laurent forced the words out, clipped, like spitting glass. “But I’m not-” His chest heaved. He hated how much effort it cost him to speak. “I’m not good. You shouldn’t waste your time getting involved.”

Damen’s brows drew together, a shadow of confusion crossing his face. Laurent pressed on before he could answer, desperate to carve distance between them.

“We’re not those boys anymore. It’s been years. And it’s better if we stay apart.”

For a moment Damen just looked at him. Really looked, eyes narrowing in thought, his head tilting slightly like he was piecing together a puzzle Laurent couldn’t bear to hand over. The silence stretched until it threatened to choke.

Finally Damen asked, softly but steady, “Is that what you really want?”

Laurent’s throat closed. His silence was answer enough.

Damen’s mouth twisted into something that wasn’t quite a smile, wasn’t quite a frown. It was smaller, sadder, an expression Laurent had never seen on him before. “You still look as sad as you did then,” he murmured, almost to himself.

The words punched through Laurent’s chest like a blade. He stiffened, heart battering against his ribs.

“Why do you think you’re so unworthy?” Damen asked, and there was no judgment in it, only bafflement and an ache that felt unbearable to meet.

Laurent shook his head, a sharp jerk. “I can’t say.” His voice cracked. “If I tell you - you’ll look at me differently.”

“I won’t,” Damen said instantly, fierce.

“You will.” Laurent cut him off, the words sharp enough to bleed. “You don’t know me, Damen. You don’t know anything about me.”

The air between them was taut as wire, Damen staring at him, searching for something he wasn’t allowed to find. Laurent held his ground, every muscle tight, though inside he wanted to crumple.

Damen’s gaze softened, his voice dropping lower. “Does Nicaise know?”

Laurent’s jaw clenched. The urge to lie clawed at him, but he couldn’t make himself say the words. “Yes.”

Damen studied him, careful. “And does he look at you differently?”

Laurent’s chest ached. He swallowed, eyes darting away. “Nicaise is the same as me. A product of our childhoods.” The sentence landed like a stone, heavy and final. He offered nothing more.

Damen didn’t press. He only breathed out, a long exhale, like he was holding himself back from reaching across the gulf between them.

“If you really don’t want anything to do with me,” he said quietly, “I’ll leave you alone. I promise.” His mouth tilted, a faint shadow of the dimples Laurent remembered. “But the offer for coffee is still on the table, Laurent. Only if you want to.”

The words hung there, gentle, patient. Laurent wanted to tear them down, to turn and walk away and never risk this ache again. But the thought of Damen smiling across from him, laughing the way he used to, his voice tumbling over stories - Laurent wanted that.

He wanted it so badly it hurt.

And against every instinct screaming no, every wall he’d built around himself, he heard his own voice betray him.

“…Yes.”

Damen blinked, then smiled - real and warm this time, dimples deep, sunlight breaking through clouds.

Laurent’s heart hammered, shame and longing tangling in his chest. But for the first time in years, his “yes” didn’t feel like surrender.

“But it’s too late to go tonight,” Laurent said, voice flat, though his heart was still tripping unevenly.

“Tomorrow then,” Damen replied without hesitation, eyes lighting up. “Afternoon? You said yesterday you work mornings on Fridays.”

Laurent blinked. He hadn’t meant to give that away. Still, he nodded once. “Fine.”

The smile Damen gave him was unguarded, bright - so bright it almost hurt to look at. Dimples deepened, his whole face alive with excitement, and for a flicker of a moment Laurent felt something like pity. That Damen could be so eager to see him - a bitter, hollow shell. It felt undeserved. Cruel, almost.

But when Damen said goodbye, lingering like he wanted to say more, and finally turned away down the street, Laurent found himself standing still in the cold. And the strangest thing: the air didn’t bite as sharply. His chest felt less like a chasm and more like… space. Empty, yes, but lighter.

By the time he got home, the silence of the apartment waiting for him, Laurent pulled out his phone. His thumb hovered, then tapped. Damen’s number slid off the block list, the empty thread reappearing. He didn’t type anything. He couldn’t.

Two minutes later, the screen lit up anyway.

sleep well :)

Laurent stared at it, lips pressed tight, his heart knocking against his ribs. He set the phone facedown on the table and told himself not to feel anything. But when he lay down on the couch, he realised he was still a little warm.